Luís Pinto

Luís Santos-Pinto

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    My main area of research is behavioral economics. I study the links between information, cognition, judgment, and economic behavior. My research explores the implications of self-confidence in terms of individual decision making, the design of incentives in organizations, market outcomes, and welfare. I also use laboratory and field experiments to study the existence and consequences of biased beliefs for economic decisions.
    My contribution to behavioral economics can be grouped into three main axis of research. The first axis focuses on the impact of self-confidence on incentives in organizations, market outcomes, and welfare. I generalize theoretical models by assuming that some agents are rational, some are overconfident, and others underconfident. I derive equilibrium predictions of these models and generate testable implications.
    The second axis of my research uses experimental methods to study risk attitudes, their interaction with self-confidence and strategic decisions (with José Mata and Thomas Astebro). We are particularly interested in understanding how individuals react to skewed payoff distributions, that is, situations where there is a small probability of a large gain (e.g. gambling in public lotteries, entry into entrepreneurship, market entry) or a small probability of a large loss (e.g., insurance).
    The third axis of my research combines theory with experimental methods to study the impact of self-confidence on teamwork (with Jean-Louis Rullière and Isabelle Vialle) and partnerships (with Miguel Costa-Gomes and Marcela Ibanez). We are interested in finding out if overconfidence can raise team output and what role it plays in fostering successful (or unsuccessful) partnerships.

PUBLISHED AND FORTHCOMING PAPERS

"A Model of Positive Self-Image in Subjective Assessments" (with Joel Sobel),
American Economic Review, 2005, Vol. 95, No. 5, 1386-1402. Paper

"Positive Self-Image and Incentives in Organizations"
The Economic Journal, 2008, Vol. 118, 1315-1332. Paper Slides

"Making Sense of the Experimental Evidence on Endogenous Timing in Duopoly Markets."
Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2008, Vol. 68, 657-666. Paper Slides

"Asymmetries in Information Processing in a Decision Theory Framework"
Theory and Decision, 2009, Vol. 66, 317-343. Paper

"Positive Self-Image in Tournaments."
International Economic Review, 2010, Vol. 51, No. 2, 475-496. Paper Slides

"Overconfidence in Tournaments: Evidence from the Field" (with Young-Joon Park)
Theory and Decision, 2010, Vol. 69, 143-166. Paper Slides

"The Impact of Firm Cost and Market Size Asymmetries on National Mergers
in a Three-Country Model"
International Journal of Industrial Organization, 2010, Vol. 28, 682-694. Paper Slides

"Labor Market Signaling and Self-Confidence: Wage Compression and the Gender Pay Gap"
Journal of Labor Economics, forthcoming.
This version: December 2011. Paper

WORKING PAPERS

"A Cognitive Hierarchy Model of Behavior in Endogenous Timing Games"
(with Daniel Carvalho)
Revise and resubmit International Journal of Game Theory
This version: October 2010. Paper

"Self-Confidence and Teamwork: An Experimental Test"
(with Isabelle Vialle and Jean-Louis Rullière)
This version: September 2011. Paper Slides

"Entrepreneurial Overconfidence, Self-Financing, and Capital Market Efficiency"
(with Michele Dell'Era)
This version: October 2011. Paper

"Preference for Skew in Lotteries: Evidence from the Laboratory"
(with Thomas Astebro and José Mata)
This version: September 2011. Paper Appendix Slides

"Risk Taking in Mixed Gambles"
(with Thomas Astebro and José Mata)
This version: December 2011. Paper

"Overconfidence and Timing of Entry"
(with Tiago Pires)
This version: September 2010. Paper

"Tacit Collusion under Fairness and Reciprocity"
(with Doruk Iris)
This version: May 2011. Paper

"People do not ever fully overcome the egocentrism that Piaget and others claim to be characteristic of the immature social perceiver" Griffin, Dunning, and Ross (1990)

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