Decision Modeling in Policy Management: An Introduction to the Analytic Concepts

The effectiveness of policy decisions depends not only on the quality of the analysis but also on the communication between analyst and decision-maker. As a result, this book employs the following three-step decomposition of the decision modeling process throughout the book: (1) visual-structural modeling, (2) analytic-formal modeling, and (3) algorithmic resolution modeling. The 10 chapters address the most relevant issues in decision modeling in policy management: the problem-solving process, visual decision modeling, descriptive and normative preference elicitation and aggregation methods, dealing with uncertainty in dynamic problems, social choices, conflict resolution, and constraint-optimization problems. A problem-oriented engineering approach has been taken throughout the book because this approach covers the most popular decision modeling issues in: (1) decision analysis (decision trees, probabilistic influence diagrams, fuzzy decision-making, risk analysis), (2) operations research (facility location, scheduling, linear and non-linear programming, network optimization), and (3) economics (cost-benefit analysis, capital budgeting, shadow prices, marginal rate of substitution, net present value, game theory). Decision Modeling in Policy Management : Introduces a visual approach to decision modeling in policy management (over 100 figures and illustrations), integrating the European School (outranking relations, dimension reduction, ordinal preferences, rank correlation) and the American School (utility theory, analytic hierarchy process, game theory, constraint-optimization). Presents analytic approaches in the context of structural, formal, and resolution modeling; references to further practical and theoretical readings; intuitive visual reasoning; detailed numerical examples replacing theorems and formal proofs. Discusses new decision analytical features: visual interactive preference ordering; dynamic plots in virtual negotiation; hypermedia influence diagram modeling. Integrates 100 problems with worked-out solutions; an Internet syllabus with assignments, students comments, and Internet multimedia software are available.