Bias and Overtaking Optimality for Continuous-Time Jump Markov Decision Processes in Polish Spaces

Abstract

In this paper we study the bias and the overtaking optimality criteria for continuous-time jump Markov decision processes in general state and action spaces. The corresponding transition rates are allowed to be unbounded, and the reward rates may have neither upper nor lower bounds. Under appropriate hypotheses, we prove the existence of solutions to the bias optimality equations, the existence of bias optimal policies, and an equivalence relation between bias and overtaking optimality.