Hi! I’m a PhD Candidate in Economics at University of Pittsburgh. I’m a microeconomic theorist working on mechanism design and market design. My research focuses on problems of asymmetric information and boundedly rational agents, with applications in Industrial Organization and Public Economics.
I hold a BA in Economics and Business and an MA in Economics from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.
I’m on the 2023-2024 job market!
Research
Working papers:
- Product Line Design with Frictions. [Paper]
Abstract
We study a monopolist's product line design problem with search frictions. Consumers only evaluate a random subset of price-quality pairs in the menu, limiting the monopolist's ability to perfectly match contracts to consumer types. This creates a tradeoff faced when expanding the product line between extracting more rents from different consumer types and increased search costs. We show that when consumers are limited to seeing a single random contract out of the menu, then the optimal menu for the monopolist always contains a single offer. When consumers observe more than one offer, we show that a balanced menu with two contracts that are seen by a consumer with the same probability is never optimal. The monopolist rather has an incentive to "bias" the menu so that one of the offers is observed more often. Using an unbalanced menu has an impact on the quality provided to low valuation consumers, either reinforcing or reducing the distortions generated by asymmetric information. We discuss the consequences on quality provision, as well as the welfare effects of these distortions.
- Full Surplus Extraction and Consideration Sets. [Paper]
Abstract
We examine the surplus extraction problem in a mechanism design setting with consideration sets. We model consideration sets as the subset of types a particular type considers as possible deviations. Our model is built upon a discrete version of the reduced mechanism design problem in McAfee and Reny (1992), and the partially verifiable types in Green and Laffont (1986) for the modeling of consideration sets. We identify the inverse consideration sets as the key elements to determine whether full surplus extraction is feasible or not, and characterize the conditions that guarantee full surplus extraction to be feasible in this setting. We show that the independence condition identified by Cremer and McLean (1988) remains sufficient for full surplus extraction in our setting but could be relaxed to obtain a more general characterization. Finally, we discuss some applications and limitations of our model.
Work in progress:
- Reforming Auctions with Behavioral Bidders
- Regional Disparities in State Capacity and Voting for Decentralization Reforms (with Martin Besfamille and Amedeo Piolatto)
Teaching
University of Pittsburgh
- Instructor for Economic Modeling Skills. Fall 2023, Spring 2024
- Instructor for Intermediate Microeconomics. Summer 2023
Instructor for Game Theory. Summer 2021, Summer 2022
- TA for Microeconomic Theory 2 (PhD). Spring 2023
- TA for Introduction to Microeconomic Theory (undergraduate). Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2022
- TA for Microeconomic Theory 1 (PhD). Fall 2019
Universidad Adolfo Ibañez School of Engineering
- Instructor for Principles of Economics (undergraduate) Spring 2018
- Instructor for Microeconomics (undergraduate) Spring 2018