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.
I will be on the 2024-2025 Job Market.
My email is aespitia@uni-bonn.de.
Research
Working papers
When to request a test? (with E. Muñoz-Rodríguez) - Please check back soon!
Confidence and Organizations [Video]
Miscalibrated beliefs generally compromise the quality of workers' decisions. Why might a firm prefer to hire an individual known to be overconfident? In this paper, I explore the role of such biases when members of the organization disagree about the right course of action. I present a model in which an agent uses his private information to make a choice on behalf of a principal. In this setting, I consider what I call the belief design problem: how would the principal like the agent to interpret his observations? I provide conditions under which the solution indicates a preference for a well-calibrated, an underconfident, or an overconfident agent. A well-calibrated agent is preferred if and only if his information does not affect the expected difference in the players' preferred actions. Overconfidence is optimal when the principal seeks to adjust actions beyond what a well-calibrated agent would do.
Work in progress
Robust contracts under social preferences
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)
