Shannon's comparison of channels characterized by optimal decision making

Abstract

According to Blackwell's Theorem it is equivalent to compare channels by either a garbling order or optimal decision making. This equivalence does not hold anymore if also allowing pre-garbling, i. e. for the so-called Shannon-order (see Rauh et al., 2017). We show that the equivalence Fails in general even if the set of decision makers is reduced. This is overcome by the introduction of convexified Shannon-usefulness as a preference relation of decision makers over channels. We prove that convexified Shannon-order and convexified Shannon-usefulness are equivalent.

19 pages