Undiscounted Bandit Games

Keller, Godfrey and Rady, Sven (21. September 2015): Undiscounted Bandit Games. SFB/TR 15 Discussion Paper No. 520

Abstract

We analyze continuous-time games of strategic experimentation with two-armedbandits when there is no discounting. We show that for all specifications of priorbeliefs and payoff-generating processes that satisfy some separability condition, the unique symmetric Markov perfect equilibrium can be computed in a simple closed form involving only the expected current payoff of the risky arm and the expected full-information payoff, given current information. The separability condition holds in a variety of models that have been explored in the literature, all of which assume that the risky arm’s expected payoff per unit of time is time-invariant and actual payoffs are generated by a process with independent and stationary increments. The separability condition does not hold when the expected payoff per unit of time is subject to state-switching.

• Item Type: Paper
• Keywords: Strategic Experimentation, Two-Armed Bandit, Markov-Perfect Equilibrium
• Faculties: Special Research Fields > Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems > A8 - Strategische Erzeugung und Weitergabe von Informationen
• Subjects: 300 Social sciences > 330 Economics
• JEL Classification: C73, D83
• Language: English