English

Dynamic Optimal Choice When Rewards are Unbounded Below

Theoretical Economics 2019-12-02 v1 Optimization and Control

Abstract

We propose a new approach to solving dynamic decision problems with rewards that are unbounded below. The approach involves transforming the Bellman equation in order to convert an unbounded problem into a bounded one. The major advantage is that, when the conditions stated below are satisfied, the transformed problem can be solved by iterating with a contraction mapping. While the method is not universal, we show by example that many common decision problems do satisfy our conditions.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1911.13025,
  title  = {Dynamic Optimal Choice When Rewards are Unbounded Below},
  author = {Qingyin Ma and John Stachurski},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1911.13025},
  year   = {2019}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T12:30:49.957Z