Type B Objective: ’The Journey is the Goal’

Abstract

“In typical formulations of dynamic optimization, single or multiple objectvues are obtained through aggregating the dynamic trajectories by integral functions. This technique is motivated, however, by traditional mathematical approaches to dynamic optimization, and not necessarily by the needs of the real xjuorld.”¹ This quotation is particularly directed to applications in business and economics, where a stream of consumption or utility is customarily dealt with by simply maximizing the added or, respectively, the integrated per-period contributions, which are usually discounted.² This method of approaching the solution of the underlying problem has three drawbacks:

• It covers up the inherent problem of intertemporal conflict connected with the multiperiodicity of the pursued problem.

• It is not always the suitable method to solving the intertemporal conflict, especially where non-convexity is involved.

• In certain cases, it is not even a feasible method to solving the problem.