doi.org
Pandora's Problem with Combinatorial Cost
July 2023 • Ben Berger, Tomer Ezra, Michal Feldman, Federico Fusco
Pandora’s problem is a fundamental model in economics that studies optimal search strategies under costly inspection. In this paper we initiate the study of Pandora’s problem with combinatorial costs, capturing many real-life scenarios where search cost is non-additive. Weitzman’s celebrated algorithm [1979] establishes the remarkable result that, for additive costs, the optimal search strategy is non-adaptive and computationally feasible. We inquire to which extent this structural and computational simplicity ext…