Update two lectures on affine asset pricing models#834
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HumphreyYang merged 19 commits intomainfrom Mar 17, 2026
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* Add optimistic initialization to Q-learning lecture Initialize Q-table to 20 (above true value range of 13-18) instead of zeros, which drives broader exploration via "optimism in the face of uncertainty". This speeds convergence enough to reduce the training run from 20M to 5M steps. Added a new subsection explaining the technique. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com> * Add optimistic initialization to risk-sensitive Q-learning lecture Initialize Q-table to 1e-5 (below true Q-value range of ~1e-5 to 1e-4) instead of ones. Since the optimal policy minimizes q, optimistic means initializing below the truth — the reverse of the risk-neutral case. This speeds convergence enough to reduce training from 20M to 5M steps. Added a subsection explaining the reversed optimistic init logic. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com> * Add \EE macro to MathJax config * Restore profit to observation list; fix risk-sensitive optimistic init value and narrative --------- Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com> Co-authored-by: Matt McKay <mmcky@users.noreply.github.com>
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This PR updates the affine asset pricing model lecture and Backus lecture.