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Retrospective Search: Exploration and Ambition on Uncharted Terrain / Can Urgun, Leeat Yariv.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Urgun, Can.
- Series:
- Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w29127.
- NBER working paper series no. w29127
- Language:
- English
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);
- Place of Publication:
- Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2021.
- Summary:
- We study a model of retrospective search in which an agent--a researcher, an online shopper, or a politician--tracks the value of a product. Discoveries beget discoveries and their observations are correlated over time, which we model using a Brownian motion. The agent, a standard exponential discounter, decides the breadth and length of search. We fully characterize the optimal search policy. The optimal search scope is U-shaped, with the agent searching most ambitiously when approaching a breakthrough or when nearing search termination. A drawdown stopping boundary is optimal, where the agent ceases search whenever current observations fall a constant amount below the maximal achieved alternative. We also show special features that emerge from contracting with a retrospective searcher.
- Notes:
- Print version record
- August 2021.
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