Alejandro Francetich

Profile
Curriculum Vitae

Associate Professor and Area Coordinator of Economics
UW Bothell School of Business

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

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Prof Alejandro Francetich smiling while wearing a suit

Curriculum Vitae

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

Work in Progress

Francetich, A. and B. Schipper, “Equilibrium Screening Under Unawareness”
This work revisits our problem of under unawareness adopting an equilibrium concept that yields the standard contract-design solution under symmetric awareness.

Francetich, A. and B. Schipper, “Unawareness in Auctions and Procurement”
This work expands our joint work on screening under unawareness by introducing competition for the principal’s award or contract. If the agents raise the principal’s awareness, she can revise the terms of the auction or procurement process. We explore the agents’ incentives to raise the principal’s awareness unilaterally or bilaterally, covertly or overtly.

Francetich, A. and B. Schipper, “Awareness of Unawareness in Contracting” This work expands our joint work on screening under unawareness by allowing the principal to be unaware that the she might be unaware of some types, and thus that an agent’s message about types might only be partial. By accounting for this possibility, the principal can commit to rewarding the agent for raising her awareness.

Francetich, A., “Agency Role Reversal in Start-Up Partnerships”
In start-up partnerships, depending on the circumstances and expertise, the CEO may often need to step in as manager, while the manager temporarily steps up as CEO. Thus, contracts must account for the differences in tasks and responsibilities due to such role reversals. This project investigates the contract-design problem between two partners in a long-term partnership where, each period, the roles of principal and agent are i.i.d. draws based on a given probability. The partner in the role of principal must incentivize the partner in the role of agent to exert effort to produce output; but said incentives can leverage the probability that the agent may become the principal in the future, as well as who has had each role in the past for longer.

Francetich, A., “When to Dissolve a Partnership”
This work analyses the problem of timing the dissolution of a partnership between a savvy partner, who posses proprietary private information about the evolution of the value of the joint venture, and a silent partner who only observes public information. Each period, the agent with proprietary information privately observes the realization of the resale value and chooses whether to continue with the partnership or to call for negotiations to dissolve it. We explore how the potential signalling of proprietary information affects the timing of the partnership dissolution.

Francetich, A., “Mixed Reporting and Comparative Statics in Mechanism Design”
This work analyses two separate problems in standard mechanism design: (1) What mechanisms work well when the agent mixes their report? (2) A distribution that assigns more weight on “good” types yields a highest social surplus, but also features a larger mass of rent-earning agents; under what conditions does the principal profit from a “better” distribution?

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