Alejandro Francetich

Associate Professor
UW Bothell School of Business

aletich@uw.edu
(425) 352-5262
UWBB-250

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

• Francetich, A., “When Partner Knows Best: Asymmetric Expertise in Partnerships,” International
  Journal of Game Theory, Vol. 52, no. 2, June 2023, 363-399
• Francetich, A. and D. Kreps, “Choosing a Good Toolkit, II: Bayes-rule Based Heuristics,” Journal
  of Economic Dynamics and Control, Vol. 111, February 2020, article no. 103814
• Francetich, A. and D. Kreps, “Choosing a Good Toolkit, I: Prior-free Heuristics,” Journal of
  Economic Dynamics and Control, Vol. 111, February 2020, article no. 103813
• Battigalli, P., A. Francetich, G. Lanzani, and M. Marinacci, “Learning and Self-confirming Long-
  Run Biases,” Journal of Economic Theory, Vol. 183, September 2019, 740-785
• Francetich, A., “Efficient Multi-Agent Experimentation and Multi-Choice Bandits,” Economics
  Bulletin, Vol. 38, No. 4, October 2018, A163
• Francetich, A., “Becoming the Neighbor Bidder: Endogenous Winner’s Curse in Dynamic
  Mechanisms,” AEJ: Microeconomics, Vol. 7, Issue 2, May 2015, 45-76
• Francetich, A. and D. Kreps, “Bayesian Inference Does Not Lead You Astray. . .On Average,”
  Economics Letters, Vol. 125, Issue 3, December 2014, 444-446
• Francetich, A., “Notes on Supermodularity and Increasing Differences in Expected Utility,”
  Economics Letters, Vol. 121, Issue 2, November 2013, 206-209

Working Papers

Francetich, A. “A Note on Stochastic Orders and Incentives“

In contract design, a profit-maximizing principal trades off social surplus for lower information rents. Imagine that the principal is able to influence the distribution of agent types; for instance, a monopolist can invest in marketing campaigns to boost demand. 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 are the social and private benefits aligned?

In a quasilinear setting, Proposition 2 in Hart and Reny (2015) can be adapted to show that first-order stochastic dominance (FOSD) guarantees said alignment by giving monotonicity of the principal’s expected profit. This argument does not invoke the structure of expected information rents, nor whether incentive compatibility binds. With linear utilities, we propose a weaker stochastic order corresponding to said monotonicity: incentive dominance (ID), dominance in the increasing convex order (ICxOD) applied to possibly-truncated (excluding lower types), possibly-ironed virtual utilities. It turns out that, while weaker, ID is “very close” to FOSD: We show that, for regular distributions, FOSD is in fact equivalent to ICxOD applied to the non-truncated
virtual utilities.

Francetich, A. and Schipper, B., “Discrete Screening“

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 Strategic Thinking in Business and Life (undergraduate, FYPP), UW Bothell
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