Pietro Dall'Ara

Ciao!

I'm a PhD candidate at Boston College. My research is in Microeconomic Theory.

In September 2024 I will join  CSEF and the Department of Economics and Statistics, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II.

Here are my job-market paper and curriculum vitae.

Committee: Mehmet Ekmekci, Laurent Mathevet, Utku Ünver, and Bumin Yenmez.

Contact me at: pietro.dallara@bc.edu

Working Papers

JMP

Coordination in Complex Environments

[paper] [slides]

I introduce a framework to study coordination in highly uncertain environments. Coordination is an important aspect of innovative contexts, where: the more innovative a course of action, the more uncertain its outcome. To explore the interplay of coordination and informational complexity, this paper embeds a beauty-contest game into a complex environment. I uncover a new conformity phenomenon. The new effect may push towards exploration of unknown alternatives, or constitute a status quo bias, depending on the network structure of the connections among players. In an application to oligopoly pricing, an increase in complexity results in a higher level of conformity in pricing policies. I study the new coordination problems introduced by complexity and propose an equilibrium selection rule. In an application to multi-division organizations, sufficiently high complexity "implements" the same profits as centralized decision-making.  I also study heterogeneity across players in the mapping from decisions to outcomes, and private information about a status quo.

Presentations: 1st BC-BU Theory Conference, BC-Brown-BU Theory Workshop, 11th Warwick Ph.D. Conference, and Brown Theory/Experimental Lunch Seminar

The Extensive Margin of Bayesian Persuasion

[paper] [slides]

I study the persuasion of a receiver who accesses information only if she exerts attention effort. The sender uses the information to incentivize the receiver to pay attention. I show that persuasion mechanisms are equivalent to signals. In a model of media capture, the sender finds it optimal to censor high states.

Presentations: Econometric Society North American Meeting (TX), Young Economists Meeting, Econometric Society European Meeting, EUI (Micro Group), U. of Bologna,  Brown Theory/Experimental Lunch Seminar, Boston University Reading Group, Queen Mary Ph.D. Workshop.

Work In Progress

Double Votes

Double votes are used in standard-setting organizations and unionization decisions. I study the ability of double votes to aggregate information dispersed among voters, in the sense of adopting the same policy as under symmetric information. A double vote aggregates information in situations in which a single vote fails to aggregate information.

A Theory of Policy Competition with Conformity

I study a spatial model of elections where parties face a complex environment. Each party represents a combination of an agent of a constituency of voters and a career-concerned politician. Complexity lessens platform divergence and platforms converge if career concerns are sufficiently strong.

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PhD Game Theory

Undergraduate Game Theory