Pandora's Box Reopened: Robust Search and Choice Overload
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arXiv
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2025
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| _version_ | 1866911337581379584 |
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| author | Auster, Sarah Che, Yeon-Koo |
| author_facet | Auster, Sarah Che, Yeon-Koo |
| contents | This paper revisits the classic Pandora's box problem, studying a decision-maker (DM) who seeks to minimize her maximal ex-post regret. The DM decides how many options to explore and in what order, before choosing one or taking an outside option. We characterize the regret-minimizing search rule and show that the likelihood of opting out often increases as more options become available for exploration. We show that this ``choice overload" is driven by the DM's fear of ``selection error" -- the regret from searching the wrong options -- suggesting that steering choice via recommendations or cost heterogeneity can mitigate regret and encourage search. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_21192 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Pandora's Box Reopened: Robust Search and Choice Overload Auster, Sarah Che, Yeon-Koo Theoretical Economics This paper revisits the classic Pandora's box problem, studying a decision-maker (DM) who seeks to minimize her maximal ex-post regret. The DM decides how many options to explore and in what order, before choosing one or taking an outside option. We characterize the regret-minimizing search rule and show that the likelihood of opting out often increases as more options become available for exploration. We show that this ``choice overload" is driven by the DM's fear of ``selection error" -- the regret from searching the wrong options -- suggesting that steering choice via recommendations or cost heterogeneity can mitigate regret and encourage search. |
| title | Pandora's Box Reopened: Robust Search and Choice Overload |
| topic | Theoretical Economics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.21192 |