English

With or without replacement? Sampling uncertainty in Shepp's urn scheme

Probability 2022-03-07 v2 Statistical Finance

Abstract

We introduce a variant of Shepp's classical urn problem in which the optimal stopper does not know whether sampling from the urn is done with or without replacement. By considering the problem's continuous-time analog, we provide bounds on the value function and in the case of a balanced urn (with an equal number of each ball type) an explicit solution is found. Surprisingly, the optimal strategy for the balanced urn is the same as in the classical urn problem.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1911.11971,
  title  = {With or without replacement? Sampling uncertainty in Shepp's urn scheme},
  author = {Kristoffer Glover},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1911.11971},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

14 pages, 3 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-23T12:28:36.646Z