Constrained Markov decision processes with total cost criteria: Occupation measures and primal LP

Abstract

This paper is the third in a series on constrained Markov decision processes (CMDPs) with a countable state space and unbounded cost. In the previous papers we studied the expected average and the discounted cost. We analyze in this paper the total cost criterion. We study the properties of the set of occupation measures achieved by different classes of policies; we then focus on stationary policies and on mixed deterministic policies and present conditions under which optimal policies exist within these classes. We conclude by introducing an equivalent infinite Linear Program.