Research
Decisions over Sequences: Computability and Choice
arXiv:2203.00070v3 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: We develop a framework to study situations where decision makers face alternatives sequentially. Within this framework, we focus on endogenous
arXiv:2203.00070v3 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: We develop a framework to study situations where decision makers face alternatives sequentially. Within this framework, we focus on endogenous stopping behavior using two broad classes of decision rules: extit{stopping rules} and extit{bounded stopping rules}. We establish the equivalence of these two classes and examine two of its implications. First, focusing on the procedural aspects of decision making, we define extit{computable} rules using the model of a Turing machine. Our equivalence result enables us to show that computable rules are implementable by finite automata. Second, we extend the setup of abstract choice theory beyond choice from sets and finite lists, to that from extit{infinite sequences} of alternatives. The equivalence result allows us to derive extit{testable implications} of choice behavior. We develop a revealed-preference ``toolkit'' and use it to characterize a threshold-based and a satisficing choice procedure.
Related
- Ineffectiveness for Search and Undecidability of PCSP Meta-Problems
- Rebellious Student: Reversing Teacher Signals for Reasoning Exploration with Self-Distilled RLVR
- FinInvest-GTCN: Explainable Graph-Temporal-Causal Modeling for Risk-Aware Investment Decision Optimization
Source: arXiv cs.CL | 2026-08-04