An Informal Look at the Principle of Optimality

Evan Porteus
Additional contact information
Evan Porteus: Stanford University

Management Science, 1975, vol. 21, issue 11, 1346-1348

Abstract: The Principle of Optimality is examined informally in the context of discounted Markov decision processes. Our purpose is to illustrate that one should be invoking the optimality equations and/or the optimality criterion, rather than the Principle of Optimality in analyzing dynamic models. A counterexample to one interpretation of the Principle is given. It involves a foolish action at the second stage from a state that can be reached, but with probability zero. Redefining optimality as in Hinderer [Hinderer, K. 1970. Foundations of Non-stationary Dynamic Programming with Discrete Time Parameter. Springer-Verlag, New York.], restores the Principle, at the cost of a weaker notion of optimality.

Date: 1975
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.21.11.1346 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:21:y:1975:i:11:p:1346-1348

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Management Science from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().