Rosina Rodríguez Olivera

Research

Published and Accepted Papers:

"Strategic incentives and the optimal sale of information" (American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 2024)

Abstract

A monopolist data-seller offers information to privately informed data-buyers. I characterize the data-seller's optimal menu, which screens between two types of data-buyers.  Data-buyers' preferences for information allow the data-seller to extract all surplus and the optimal menu's features are determined by the interaction between data-buyers' strategic incentives and the correlation of their private information. The data-seller offers  perfect information to the data-buyer with the highest willingness to pay and partial information, which makes this type indifferent. Both experiments are informative even when data-buyers have congruent beliefs if they have coordination (anti-coordination) incentives and their private information is negatively (positively) correlated.

Working Papers:

"Optimal disclosure of private information to competitors" (3rd Round R&R at American Economic Journal: Microeconomics)

Abstract

I study the incentives of an informed firm to share its private information with a competitor, and the incentives of a regulator to restrict or mandate disclosure in order to benefit consumers. Firms offer differentiated products and compete à la Bertrand, with one firm holding an informational advantage about demand over its competitor. I show that full disclosure is optimal for the informed firm, as it increases price correlation and enhances surplus extraction from consumers. A regulator can increase expected consumer surplus and overall welfare by limiting disclosure. However, consumers may benefit when the regulator privately discloses some information to the uninformed firm. The consumer-optimal disclosure policy is designed to induce high cross-price elasticities and generate coordination failures in pricing.

"Who Borrows from Whom? Market Segmentation in Consumer Loans"

Abstract

This paper develops a model of credit market screening with heterogeneous lenders, borrower default risk, and regulatory interest rate caps. Two lenders compete by offering menus of loan contracts, and differ in their lending costs. Borrowers are heterogeneous in their repayment probability and in their valuation of credit, both of which decline with borrower risk. In equilibrium, borrowers self-select across lenders according to type, generating endogenous market segmentation. We show that interest rate caps distort optimal contract menus, inducing bunching, flattening repayment schedules, and shifting the cutoff type that determines which borrowers are served by each lender. The model rationalizes two robust empirical regularities: (i) non-bank lenders concentrate at the regulatory ceiling, while banks offer strictly lower rates, and (ii) default rates are systematically higher among non-bank borrowers. We further characterize the welfare-maximizing cap, highlighting the regulator’s trade-off between broader borrower coverage and sustaining lender participation. Our results underscore how lender heterogeneity interacts with borrower risk to shape the effectiveness and unintended consequences of interest rate regulation.