Working Papers

Activist Trading Dynamics

Doruk Cetemen, Gonzalo Cisternas, Aaron Kolb and S. Viswanathan
07/2023 version
PDF  
  • A leader activist can trade strategically to steer other blockholders to add value to a firm
  • The model’s predictions match several aspects of wolf pack activism

Signaling with Private Monitoring

Gonzalo Cisternas and Aaron Kolb
R&R at The Review of Economic Studies, 04/2023 version
PDF   Supplementary Appendix   Code: spm.nb  
  • A dynamic signaling game in which the receiver’s observations are private leads to a complex problem of higher-order beliefs
  • Situations like this abound – we introduce a framework for analyzing them

Misinformation in Social Media: The Role of Verification Incentives

Gonzalo Cisternas and Jorge Vasquez
05/2023 version
PDF  
  • An equilibrium theory of fake news amenable to policy analysis
  • Algorithms that detect and remove fake content from platforms may not work as intended

A Note on the Comparative Statics of Optimal Procurement Auctions

Gonzalo Cisternas and Nicolás Figueroa
PDF  
  • A supplier with private information about her costs becomes more efficient
  • Will this lead to more profits when an optimal mechanism is in place?

Publications

Consumer Scores and Price Discrimination

Alessandro Bonatti, Gonzalo Cisternas
The Review of Economic Studies, 87(2), 750–791, 2020
PDF   Slides   Journal Article   Supplementary Appendix   Code: scores.nb   Media: Represent Consumers Letter to FTC
  • A score based on signals of past purchases is used to price discriminate
  • Strategic consumers can benefit from data collection, but score transparency is key

Career Concerns and the Nature of Skills

Gonzalo Cisternas
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 10(2), 152-89, 2018
PDF   Journal Article   Media: AEA Research Highlights
  • Workers exert effort to attempt to boost their reputations for being skilled
  • Whether skills are endogenous or not matters

Two-Sided Learning and the Ratchet Principle

Gonzalo Cisternas
The Review of Economic Studies, 85(1), 307–351, 2018
PDF   Slides   Journal Article  
  • Attempting to manipulate others’ beliefs can come at the cost of higher expectations of future performance
  • An unexpected way to find equilibria based on a novel ODE is uncovered

Dynamic Oligopoly with Incomplete Information

Alessandro Bonatti, Gonzalo Cisternas, Juuso Toikka
The Review of Economic Studies, 84(2), 503–546, 2017
PDF   Slides   Journal Article  
  • A market in which prices are noisy and firms have private information about their costs opens up
  • A race for leadership with firms trying to manipulate rivals’ beliefs emerges

Sequential Procurement Auctions and Their Effect on Investment Decisions

Gonzalo Cisternas, Nicolas Figueroa
RAND Journal of Economics, 46, 824-843, 2015
PDF   Slides   Journal Article  
  • Can a buyer promote competition and cost-reducing investments among suppliers?
  • Optimal advantages to past winners can achieve both goals