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.


Curriculum Vitae


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)

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