Alejandro Francetich

Profile
Curriculum Vitae

Associate Professor
UW Bothell School of Business

aletich@uw.edu
(425) 352-5262
UWBB-107D

Prof Alejandro Francetich smiling while wearing a suit

About Dr. Francetich

Academic Positions

2021 – present Associate Professor with tenure, School of Business, UW Bothell
2015 – 2021 Assistant Professor, School of Business, UW Bothell
2013 – 2015 Postdoc Fellow, Department of Decision Sciences and IGIER, Bocconi University
2011, 13, 24 Visiting Professor, Economics Department, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella (UTDT)

Education

2008 – 2013 Ph.D. in Economic Analysis and Policy, Stanford GSB, Stanford University
2005 – 2007 M.A. in Economics (Highest Distinction), UTDT
1999 – 2004 B.A. in Economics (Magna Cum Laude), Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA)

Publications

Working Papers

Francetich, A. “A Note on Stochastic Orders and Incentives” (Under review)

In contract design, a payoff-maximizing principal trades off social surplus for lower information rents. Imagine that the principal is able to influence the distribution of agent types; a monopolist can invest in marketing campaigns to boost demand, and a procurer can invest in expanding their search hoping to attract more-efficient contractors. Changes in the type distribution that generate more social surplus, however, may not be profitable for the principal if they lead to even higher information rents. When is a social improvement in the distribution of agent types also profitable for the principal when accounting for the impact of information rents? In the context of linear utilities/costs, while the increasing convex order (resp., SOSD) establishes monotonicity of the social surplus when the agent is a buyer (resp., contractor), it is insufficient for private payoffs. We show that FOSD guarantees monotonicity of the principal’s expected payoff—even if the superior distribution needs to be ironed. 

Francetich, A. and Schipper, B., “Discrete Screening” (Under review)

We consider a principal who wishes to screen an agent with discrete types by offering a menu of discrete quantities and discrete transfers. We assume that the principal’s valuation is discrete strictly concave and use a discrete first-order approach. We model the agent’s cost types as non-integer, with integer types as a limit case. Our modeling of cost types allows us to replicate the typical constraint-simplification results and thus to emulate the well-treaded steps of screening under a continuum of contracts. We show that the solutions to the discrete F.O.C.s need not be unique even under discrete strict concavity, but we also show that there cannot be more than two optimal contract quantities for each type, and that—if there are two—they must be adjacent. Moreover, we can only ensure weak monotonicity of the quantities even if virtual costs are strictly monotone, unless we limit the “degree of concavity” of the principal’s utility. Our discrete screening approach facilitates the use of rationalizability to solve the screening problem. We introduce a rationalizability notion featuring robustness with respect to an open set of beliefs over types called ∆-O Rationalizability, and show that the set of ∆-O rationalizable menus coincides with the set of usual optimal contracts—possibly augmented to include irrelevant contracts.

Francetich, A. and B. Schipper, “Rationalizable Screening and Disclosure Under Unawareness” (Under review)

This paper analyzes a principal-agent problem in which the principal (she) is unaware of some of the possible marginal-cost types of the agent (he). Since she does not conceive of all types, her planned menu of contracts may be suboptimal. Communication arises naturally as some agent types may have an incentive to make her aware of some of those types before a contract menu is offered. Thus, the action of raising the principal’s awareness level may be informative of the agent’s type: Not all of them may have incentives to raise her awareness. To capture this reasoning, we employ an extensive-form version of cautious rationalizability for which we restrict beliefs on marginal cost types to logconcavity and “reverse” Bayesianism (Karni and Vierø, 2013). We show that if initially the principal is only unaware of some low marginal cost types, then she is not made aware of all types and there is bunching at the top. If the principal is only unaware of some high marginal cost types, then she becomes aware of all types. Thus, the principal is happily made aware of inefficiencies but kept tacitly in the dark about efficiencies.

Francetich, A., C. Frosi, and A. Gambardella, “Managerial vs. Statistical Spillover in Business Strategy” (R&R at Strategic Management Journal)

Our paper (formerly titled “Strategic Selection of Business Activities: Statistical vs. Managerial Spillover”) analyzes the problem of selecting a portfolio of business activities given a budget constraint and featuring value spillover across activities. Key factors in this selection process are the synergies across activities. We develop a model that analyzes the implications of two types of synergies: managerial spillover, well-studied synergies that stem from the exploitation of common resources or real assets, and statistical spillover, largely overlooked synergies whereby news on the value of one activity are informative about the value of others. This distinction has tangible implications for business strategy. Economies of joint production imply that, in order to exploit managerial spillover, activities must be assessed and undertaken in blocks, under centralized management. Statistical spillover allows for activities to be assessed and undertaken under decentralized management provided that all relevant value information is shared across units. Thus, statistical spillover is consistent with decentralized management but integrated information.

Teaching

2024 – present Managerial Economics (undergraduate), UW Bothell
2021 – present Intermediate Microeconomics (undergraduate), UW Bothell
2021 – present Game Theory (undergraduate + graduate), UW Bothell
2017 – 2022 Quantitative Methods in Economics (undergraduate), UW Bothell
2015 – 2024 Introduction to Microeconomics (undergraduate), UW Bothell
2013 – 2015 Mathematics for Economics and Finance (graduate, Ph.D.) Bocconi University
2011, 2013, 2024 Mechanism Design (graduate, MA), UTDT

Conferences and Presentations

Peer-Reviewed Conferences

2023 North American Summer Meeting of the Econometric Society, UCLA
(Paper accepted but unable to attend due to family emergency)

2021 Annual Conference of the CEA, Simon Fraser University
Paper: “Rationalizable Screening and Disclosure Under Unawareness”
(earlier version of “Partnering with a Savvy Agent”)

2019 North American Summer Meeting of the Econometric Society, UW
Paper: “Choosing a Good Toolkit, II: Bayes-rule Based Heuristics”

2018 North American Summer Meeting of the Econometric Society, UC Davis
Paper: “Partnering with a Savvy Agent”

2017 International Game Theory Conference at Stony Brook
Paper: “Partnering with a Savvy Agent”

2016 Annual Conference of the CEA, University of Ottawa
Paper: “How to Constitute a Short-Term Partnership Efficiently”
(earlier version of “Partnering with a Savvy Agent”)

2014 International Game Theory Conference at Stony Brook
Paper: “Managing Multiple Research Projects”
(earlier version of “Efficient Multi-Agent Experimentation and Multi-Choice Bandits”)

2014 Canadian Economic Theory Conference, Simon Fraser University
Paper: “Managing Multiple Research Projects”

2012 International Game Theory Conference at Stony Brook
Paper: “Endogenous Winner’s Curse in Dynamic Mechanisms”

2011 North American Summer Meeting of the Econometric Society, WUSt.L
Paper: “Notes on Supermodularity and Increasing Differences in Expected Utility”

Invited Talks

Winter 2024, Research Seminar, Univeridad Torcuato Di Tella
Paper: “Discrete Contracts and Unawareness”

Winter 2023, Research Seminar, University of Notre Dame
Paper: “Rationalizable Screening and Disclosure Under Unawareness” (Discrete contracts)

Fall 2021, Research Seminar, UTDT
Paper: “Rationalizable Screening and Disclosure Under Unawareness”

Winter 2021, Virtual Conference on Unawareness and Unintended Consequences
Organizers: L. Chollete (Welch College of Business & Technology), S. Harrison (Barnard College),
and P. Battiston (University of Parma)
Paper: “Rationalizable Screening and Disclosure Under Unawareness,” presented by coauthor B.
Schipper

Fall 2020, Research Seminar, Monash University
Paper: “Rationalizable Screening and Disclosure Under Unawareness,” presented by coauthor B.
Schipper

Fall 2018, Research Seminar, UC Davis
Paper: “Learning and Self-confirming Long-Run Biases”

Professional Service

Peer reviews for American Economic Review, Review of Economics Studies, Econometrica, Journal of Economic
Theory, Games & Economic Behavior, Management Science, Economic Theory, International Journal of Game
Theory, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organizations.

University Service

(On leave Fall 2022-Winter 2023)

Economics Area

  • 2021 – present Economics Area Coordinator
    UW Bothell School of Business

Diversity, Equity, and Community Engagement

  • 2021 – present Global Initiatives Advisory Board
    UW Bothell campus council; School of Business representative
  • 2019 – 2021 Diversity, Equity, and Community Engagement Council (DECEC)
    UW Bothell School of Business council; founder and chair
  • 2019 – 2020 Diversity, Equity, and Community Engagement Fellowship
    UW Bothell campus; co-fellow with Codrin Nedita

    Project: Facilitate access to university for low-income, first-generation high school students via outreach, and support them as they navigate their course of studies at UW Bothell
  • 2018 – 2021 Diversity Council
    UW Bothell campus council; School of Business representative
  • 2016 – 2017 Community Engagement Council
    UW Bothell campus council; School of Business representative

Student Engagement

  • 2018 – present Undergraduate Research Mentorship and Independent Studies Advising
  • 2023 – present Administrative Review Officer
  • 2021 – 2022 Admissions Committee
    UW Bothell School of Business
  • 2018 – 2021 Undergraduate Council
    UW Bothell School of Business council; Economics area representative and secretary
  • 2018 – 2020 Economics Student Club
    Founding support and faculty advisor