Optimal Information Acquisition for Randomly Occurring Decisions

摘要

This research investigates the information acquisition policies for randomly occurring decisions. A randomly occurring decision is a decision that must be made upon the occurrence of a precipitating event that occurs randomly with time. Due to the urgency often associated with this type of decision, it is difficult to obtain fresh information at the time of the decision. Therefore, the available information will be limited to the unfresh (old) information from the past. Since the information becomes outdated and obsolete in time, regular updating of the information is often desirable in order to be prepared for the decision.