Douglas W. Hubbard Quote
Knowing something about the monetary value and cost of the information in a measurement puts a new light on what is measurable. If someone says a measurement would be too expensive, we have to ask, Compared to what? If a measurement that would just reduce uncertainty by half costs $50,000 but the EVPI is $5,000,000, then the measurement certainly is not too expensive. Indeed, it would be a bargain. But if the information value is zero, then any measurement is too expensive. Some measurements might have marginal information values—say, a few thousand dollars; not enough to justify some formal effort at measurement but a bit too much just to ignore. For those measurements, I try to think of approaches that can quickly reduce a little uncertainty—say, finding a related study or making a few phone calls to a few more experts.
Knowing something about the monetary value and cost of the information in a measurement puts a new light on what is measurable. If someone says a measurement would be too expensive, we have to ask, Compared to what? If a measurement that would just reduce uncertainty by half costs $50,000 but the EVPI is $5,000,000, then the measurement certainly is not too expensive. Indeed, it would be a bargain. But if the information value is zero, then any measurement is too expensive. Some measurements might have marginal information values—say, a few thousand dollars; not enough to justify some formal effort at measurement but a bit too much just to ignore. For those measurements, I try to think of approaches that can quickly reduce a little uncertainty—say, finding a related study or making a few phone calls to a few more experts.
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