IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/the/publsh/4960.html

Forward-looking experimentation of correlated alternatives

Author

Listed:
  • Wong, Yu Fu

    (Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh)

Abstract

This paper studies how a forward-looking decision maker experiments on unknown alternatives of correlated utilities. The utilities are modeled by a Brownian motion such that similar alternatives yield similar utilities. Experimentation trades off between the continuation value of exploration and the opportunity cost of exploitation. The optimal strategy is to continuously explore unknown alternatives, and then exploit the best known alternative when the one being explored is found to be sufficiently worse than the best one. The decision maker explores unknown alternatives more quickly as they prove to be worse than the best known one. Applied to firm experimentation, my model predicts a conditional version of Gibrat's law and a linear relation between firm size and profitability.

Suggested Citation

  • Wong, Yu Fu, 2025. "Forward-looking experimentation of correlated alternatives," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 20(3), July.
    • Handle: RePEc:the:publsh:4960
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://econtheory.org/ojs/index.php/te/article/viewFile/20250883/42322/1303
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Conze, Antoine & Viswanathan, 1991. "Path Dependent Options: The Case of Lookback Options," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(5), pages 1893-1907, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Martino Banchio & Suraj Malladi, 2025. "Rediscovery," Papers 2504.19761, arXiv.org.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bjork, Tomas, 2009. "Arbitrage Theory in Continuous Time," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, edition 3, number 9780199574742.
    2. Robert J. Bianchi & Michael E. Drew & Thanula R. Wijeratne, 2010. "Systemic Risk, the TED Spread and Hedge Fund Returns," Discussion Papers in Finance finance:201004, Griffith University, Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics.
    3. Benjamin Marcus & Chris K. Anderson, 2006. "Online Low-Price Guarantees---A Real Options Analysis," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 54(6), pages 1041-1050, December.
    4. Yang, Zhaoqiang, 2020. "Default probability of American lookback option in a mixed jump-diffusion model," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 540(C).
    5. Laura Ballotta & Andreas Kyprianou, 2001. "A note on the α-quantile option," Applied Mathematical Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(3), pages 137-144.
    6. Lim, Terence & Lo, Andrew W. & Merton, Robert C. & Scholes, Myron S., 2006. "The Derivatives Sourcebook," Foundations and Trends(R) in Finance, now publishers, vol. 1(5–6), pages 365-572, April.
    7. Hans-Peter Bermin, 2000. "Hedging lookback and partial lookback options using Malliavin calculus," Applied Mathematical Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(2), pages 75-100.
    8. Cao, Jiling & Kim, Jeong-Hoon & Li, Xi & Zhang, Wenjun, 2023. "Valuation of barrier and lookback options under hybrid CEV and stochastic volatility," Mathematics and Computers in Simulation (MATCOM), Elsevier, vol. 208(C), pages 660-676.
    9. Ha, Mijin & Kim, Donghyun & Yoon, Ji-Hun, 2024. "Valuing of timer path-dependent options," Mathematics and Computers in Simulation (MATCOM), Elsevier, vol. 215(C), pages 208-227.
    10. Sun-Yong Choi & Ji-Hun Yoon & Junkee Jeon, 2019. "Pricing of Fixed-Strike Lookback Options on Assets with Default Risk," Mathematical Problems in Engineering, Hindawi, vol. 2019, pages 1-10, January.
    11. repec:dau:papers:123456789/5374 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Ling Lu & Wei Xu & Zhehui Qian, 2017. "Efficient willow tree method for European-style and American-style moving average barrier options pricing," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(6), pages 889-906, June.
    13. Hoi Wong & Yue Kwok, 2003. "Sub-Replication and Replenishing Premium: Efficient Pricing of Multi-State Lookbacks," Review of Derivatives Research, Springer, vol. 6(2), pages 83-106, May.
    14. Hans-Peter Bermin & Peter Buchen & Otto Konstandatos, 2008. "Two Exotic Lookback Options," Applied Mathematical Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(4), pages 387-402.
    15. Cheuk, Terry H. F. & Vorst, Ton C. F., 1997. "Currency lookback options and observation frequency: A binomial approach," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 173-187, April.
    16. S. G. Kou & Hui Wang, 2004. "Option Pricing Under a Double Exponential Jump Diffusion Model," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(9), pages 1178-1192, September.
    17. San‐Lin Chung & Yi‐Ta Huang & Pai‐Ta Shih & Jr‐Yan Wang, 2019. "Semistatic hedging and pricing American floating strike lookback options," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(4), pages 418-434, April.
    18. D. Andricopoulos, Ari & Widdicks, Martin & Newton, David P. & Duck, Peter W., 2007. "Extending quadrature methods to value multi-asset and complex path dependent options," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 471-499, February.
    19. Deng, Guohe, 2020. "Pricing perpetual American floating strike lookback option under multiscale stochastic volatility model," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    20. Lee, Hangsuck & Ha, Hongjun & Lee, Minha, 2023. "Partial quanto lookback options," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    21. Guthrie, Graeme, 2011. "A note on operating leverage and expected rates of return," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 88-100, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • D30 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - General
    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:the:publsh:4960. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Editor Theoretical Economics The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Editor Theoretical Economics to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://econtheory.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.