Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/64719 
Year of Publication: 
2008
Series/Report no.: 
cemmap working paper No. CWP10/08
Publisher: 
Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice (cemmap), London
Abstract: 
This paper develops a broad theme about policy choice under ambiguity through study of a particular decision criterion. The broad theme is that, where feasible, choice between a status quo policy and an innovation is better framed as selection of a treatment allocation than as a binary decision. Study of the static minimax-regret criterion and its adaptive extension substantiate the theme. When the optimal policy is ambiguous, the static minimax-regret allocation always is fractional absent large fixed costs or deontological considerations. In dynamic choice problems, the adaptive minimax-regret criterion treats each cohort as well as possible, given the knowledge available at the time, and maximizes intertemporal learning about treatment response.
JEL: 
D7
H0
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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