Research

• Peer Preferences in Centralized School Choice Markets: Theory and Evidence (with Natalie Cox, Bobak Pakzad-Hurson, Matthew Pecenco) - Reject & Resubmit at Journal of Political Economy

Abstract: School-choice clearinghouses often advise students to "rank their true preferences" despite not allowing students to express preferences over peers. We evaluate the consequences of doing so. Empirically, we find students have preferences over relative peer ability in the college admissions market in New South Wales, Australia. Theoretically, we show stable matchings exist even with peer preferences under mild conditions, but finding one via one-shot mechanisms is unlikely. The status quo procedure frequently employed by clearinghouses is to inform applicants about the assignment of students in the previous cohort, inducing a tâtonnement process which potentially provides useful information about likely peers in the current cohort. We theoretically argue this process likely leads to an unstable outcome, and we find instability in our empirical setting. We propose a mechanism that yields stability and incentivizes truthful reporting in the presence of peer preferences.

• Staggered Rollout for Innovation Adoption 

Abstract: Adoption generates public information, so forward-looking agents may wait for others to experiment. I study a principal who cannot force adoption or use transfers, but can commit at date zero to a path of anonymous supply releases and wants to reach a target adoption level as quickly as possible. Free availability preserves the option to wait and therefore delays completion. With a homogeneous good-state payoff, releasing exactly the target quantity at date zero instead reaches the target immediately. With heterogeneous payoffs, the principal must decide when adoption should proceed smoothly and when scarce supply should induce a wave in which many agents compete for units and adopt together. I characterize payoff-ordered rollouts implemented by anonymous staircase supply. Every such rollout decomposes into smooth adoption along an indifference path pinned down by its starting point and pooled waves that leave and later rejoin it. The design problem within this class therefore becomes choosing a compatible collection of adoption waves, a weighted interval-selection problem. The shape of the payoff distribution determines which pattern is optimal. A positive, nonincreasing density on the active payoff interval uniquely selects capped availability, whereas sufficiently rapid density growth makes staggered expansion profitable. Faster completion also redistributes welfare: agents moved forward lose the option value of waiting, while sufficiently late adopters benefit from earlier information. Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) illustrates the model’s combination of staged eligibility, continuous payoff heterogeneity, evidence collection, and credible supply commitments.

•  Keeping Experts Honest: The Necessity of Override 

Abstract: A principal commits to a dynamic mechanism and repeatedly decides whether to fund projects after consulting an expert biased toward approval. Transfers are unavailable, and realized project quality never reveals the signal observed by the expert, so future decisions become the instrument for rewarding honest advice. I begin from an unrestricted measurable mechanism class and prove an exact reduction: when the expert’s degree of bias is known, every attainable outcome can be implemented by a finite recursive direct mechanism with binary reports. Mechanisms that never fund after unfavorable advice on the truthful path face a payoff ceiling that remains bounded away from first best, no matter how patient the principal becomes. Unrestricted mechanisms, by contrast, approach first best. Above an explicit threshold, every globally optimal mechanism must sometimes override unfavorable advice, meaning fund after a truthful negative recommendation. Thus, retained discretion has a nonvanishing incentive value even when override occurs only rarely on the equilibrium path. I characterize the minimum-funding frontier that governs the delivery of promised decision authority and extend the analysis to privately known expert bias, where bad-project exposure becomes the relevant screening allocation.

• Entry and Exit in School Choice Markets (with Bobak Pakzad-Hurson and Matthew Pecenco)

Abstract: Guided by matching theory, school choice markets are designed to generate stable matchings. The entry and exit of educational programs poses a barrier to stability if a long horizon is required for students to learn their preferences. In this paper, we study how entry and exit affect learning about a payoff relevant feature of educational programs: student quality. Theoretically, we show how entry and exit can inhibit stability. Empirically, using data from the college admissions market in New South Wales, Australia, we find gradual within-program convergence to stability and show how the persistent churn of programs in this marketplace inhibits overall-market convergence, leading to an unstable matching. This instability is primarily experienced by lower-ability students and those from marginalized groups, thus potentially increasing inequality.

• Iterative Reasoning Through Heuristics (with G. De Clippel, P. Ortoleva, K. Rozen, G Rubbini) - Work in Progress

Advanced Microeconomics II (PhD), Experimental Economics (syllabus), Game Theory (syllabus) - Pontificia Universidad Javeriana

Real Analysis - Summer 2025 (syllabus) - Bogotá Summer School, with Andrés Carvajal

Math Camp (PhD, syllabus), Behavioral Game Theory: Experiments in Strategic Interaction (Pre-college, syllabus)- Brown University