On the Reduction of Total-Cost and Average-Cost MDPs to Discounted MDPs

Abstract: This paper provides conditions under which total-cost and average-cost Markov decision processes (MDPs) can be reduced to discounted ones. Results are given for transient total-cost MDPs with tran- sition rates whose values may be greater than one, as well as for average-cost MDPs with transition probabilities satisfying the condition that there is a state such that the expected time to reach it is uniformly bounded for all initial states and stationary policies. In particular, these reductions imply sufficient conditions for the validity of optimality equations and the existence of stationary optimal poli- cies for MDPs with undiscounted total cost and average-cost criteria. When the state and action sets are finite, these reductions lead to linear programming formulations and complexity estimates for MDPs under the aforementioned criteria.