Pandora’s Box Reopened: Robust Search and Choice Overload

Sarah Auster () and Yeon-Koo Che ()
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Sarah Auster: University of Bonn, Department of Economics & CEPR
Yeon-Koo Che: Department of Economics & Columbia University

No 434, ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series from University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany

Abstract: This paper revisits the classic Pandora’s box problem, studying a decision-maker (DM) who seeks to minimize her maximal ex-post regret. The DM decides how many options to explore and in what order, before choosing one or taking an outside option. Wecharacterize the regret-minimizing search rule and show that the likelihood of opting out often increases as more options become available for exploration. We show that this “choice overload” is driven by the DM’s fear of selection error—the regret from searching the wrong options—suggesting that steering choice via recommendations or cost heterogeneity can mitigate regret and encourage search.

Keywords: Sequential Search; Minmax Regret; Choice Overload (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D81 D83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 50 pages
Date: 2026-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mic
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https://www.econtribute.de/RePEc/ajk/ajkdps/ECONtribute_434_2026.pdf First version, 2026 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ajk:ajkdps:434

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