Article ID: | iaor19881151 |
Country: | Netherlands |
Volume: | 39 |
Issue: | 3 |
Start Page Number: | 254 |
End Page Number: | 260 |
Publication Date: | Apr 1989 |
Journal: | European Journal of Operational Research |
Authors: | Wirth A., Samson D., Rickard J. |
Keywords: | decision |
In decision analysis, the expected value of information is a well known and used concept, where the value of information about sources of uncertainty are normally considered one at a time. When information is potentially available for more than one source of uncertainty in a decision problem and the decision maker must choose which sets of information to acquire, the nonlinearities and discontinuities which are inherent to the problem result in general non-additivity of information values. Additivity of the expected value of perfect information (EVPI) occurs only under certain conditions, and for a large proportion of decision problems, EVPIs are not even approximately additive. This paper presents an analysis of this class of problem, some fundamental results, practical implications and delineates a number of useful directions for further research.