expected utility maximization

Decision Making Based on a Nonparametric Shape-Preserving Perturbation of a Reference Utility Function

  • Jian Hu
    • Categories Finance and Economics, Robust Optimization, Stochastic Programming Tags , , , ,

    This paper develops a robust optimization based decision-making framework using a nonparametric perturbation of a reference utility function. The perturbation preserves the risk-aversion property but solves the problem of ambiguity and inconsistency in eliciting the reference utility function. We study the topology of the perturbation, and show that in the decision-making framework the price of … Read more

    Maximizing a Class of Submodular Utility Functions

  • Shabbir Ahmed
  • Alper Atamturk
    • Categories Branch and Cut Algorithms, Integer Programming Tags , , ,

    Given a finite ground set N and a value vector a in R^N, we consider optimization problems involving maximization of a submodular set utility function of the form h(S)= f (sum_{i in S} a_i), S subseteq N, where f is a strictly concave, increasing, differentiable function. This function appears frequently in combinatorial optimization problems when … Read more