Hi!
I am a theorist studying how firms and other organizations respond to environments where behavioral biases, non-standard preferences, or informational frictions are prevalent.
I am currently a postdoc at the Institute for Microeconomics at the University of Bonn.
My email is aespitia@uni-bonn.de.
Research
Working papers
In many environments, professionals have miscalibrated beliefs about their skills and knowledge, which potentially compromises the quality of their work. Why might a firm be better off hiring an individual known to be over- or under-confident? In this paper, I argue that such biases can alleviate agency frictions. I present a model in which an agent uses his private information to make a choice on behalf of a principal. Players differ in their preferred action in a given state of the world. In this setting, I consider what I call the belief design problem: how would the principal like the agent to interpret his private information? I provide conditions under which the solution to this problem can be interpreted as the principal preferring a well-calibrated, an underconfident, or an overconfident agent. A well-calibrated agent is strictly preferred by the principal if and only if the expected difference in the players' preferred actions does not vary with the signal realization. Overconfidence is optimal when the principal would like to adjust the action beyond what a well-calibrated agent would do.
Work in progress
Robust contracts under social preferences (with H. Castro-Pires)
When to request a test? (with E. Muñoz-Rodríguez)
Research careers
Teaching
University of Bonn
Topics in Microeconomic Theory (M.Sc.) - Lecturer
Behavioral Economics (M.Sc.) - Lecturer
Northwestern University
Business Analytics I, II (MBA) - Teaching Assistant
Public Economics (MBA) - Teaching Assistant
Ethics and Leadership (MBA/Executive MBA) - Teaching Assistant
Universidad del Rosario
Microeconomics I (B.Sc.) - Lecturer
Mathematical Economics (B.Sc.) - Lecturer
Mathematical Economics (M.Sc./Ph.D.) - Teaching Assistant
Education
Ph.D., Managerial Economics & Strategy - Kellogg School of Management - Northwestern University (Evanston - USA, 2022)
Chairs: David Besanko and Luis Rayo
M.Sc., Managerial Economics & Strategy - Kellogg School of Management - Northwestern University (Evanston - USA, 2017)
M.Sc., Economics (with distinction) - London School of Economics (London - UK, 2015)
B.Sc., Finance - Universidad del Rosario (Bogota - Colombia, 2012)
