This paper addresses the problem of sequentially allocating time sensitive goods, or one-period leases on a durable good, among agents who compete through time and learn about the common component of their valuation privately through experience. I show that efficiency is unattainable, and I...

The expected value of the log of a Bayesian’s posterior assessment of the true state of nature, computed under the probability law of the true state, is always at least as large as the log of the prior.

A decision maker can experiment on up to two alternatives simultaneously over time. One and only one of these alternatives can produce successes, according to a Poisson process with known arrival rate; but there is uncertainty as to which alternative is the profitable one. The decision maker only...

This paper addresses the problem of sequentially allocating timesensitive goods, or one-period leases on a durable good, among agents who compete through time and learn about the common component of the value of the allocation through experience. I show that efficiency is unattainable, and I...