michele fioretti

PhD candidate
Department of Economics
University of Southern California

​fioretti@usc.edu
​CV [pdf]

​interests: empirical IO, structural econometrics, behavioral economics

work in progress:

When More is Less: How Giving Lowers Profits
[coming soon]

Altruism and firm profits
with Kenneth Chuk
[soon] [show abstract]

Abstract: Firms' donations are pervasive, but do they increase profits? Theoretical studies attribute higher profits if consumers display warm-glow preferences and exhibition value. The two models differ in the way consumers perceive direct donations to charities. Under warm-glow, indirect donations by purchasing charity-linked products act as discounts, resulting in no extra profits. Under exhibition value, indirect donations can increase profits because consumers' own purchases and direct donations are not perfect substitutes. Indirect contributions can also generate a larger public good, but this necessarily implies lower profits. Thus, markets cannot adequately incentivize firms to promote greater individual contributions.

Quality, quality payments, and risk selection in private Medicare
with Hongming Wang
[pdf] [show abstract]

Abstract: As Medicare payment increasingly rewards value of care, empirical evidence on the effect of value-based payment is still scarce. This paper examines the incidence ofquality bonus payments in the Medicare Advantage market. We find that high quality contracts increased bids by the full amount of the bonus payment, leaving enrolleepremium and rebate unchanged. Within contract, premium increased (decreased) inhigh (low) risk counties, and the risk pool improved significantly over low quality contracts. Evidence suggests that the selection arises from a negative correlationbetween risk scores and patient outcome measures in the quality rating. The selection response calls into question the distributional implication of quality payments, andthe risk confounds in measures of quality linked to payment.

Dynamic multi-unit procurement auctions
[coming soon]

Dynamic regret avoidance
with Sasha Vostroknutov and Giorgio Coricelli
[ssrn] [show abstract]

Abstract: In a stock market experiment we examine how regret avoidance influences the decision to sell an asset while its price changes over time. Participants know beforehand whether they will observe the future prices after they sell the asset or not. Without future prices participants are affected only by regret about previously observed high prices (past regret), but, when future prices are available, they also avoid regret about expected after-sale high prices (future regret). Moreover, as the relative sizes of past and future regret change, participants dynamically switch between them. This demonstrates how multiple reference points dynamically influence sales. [pdf]

published work:

Suboptimal dishonesty: rationality in the absence of strategic behavior in honesty experiments
with Sean Marden,  The Journal of Neuroscience, 2015 [pdf]

teaching - spring 2017:

Intermediate Microeconomic Theory (EC303), TA for Prof Giorgio Coricelli [syllabus]
Problem set 1 due on Feb 6 - Solutions posted
Problem set 2 due on Mar 22 - Solutions posted [Blackboard]
Economics Peer Tutoring Center [link]
Thu 4pm-7pm
Fri 9am-3pm

past courses:

​Fall 2016, Intermediate Microeconomic Theory (EC303), for Prof Ergin Bayrak [syllabus]
Spring 2015, Intermediate Microeconomic Theory (EC303), for Prof Giorgio Coricelli [syllabus]
​Fall 2014, Principle of Microeconomics (EC203), for Prof Manochehr Rashidian [syllabus]

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Ali Abboud, Tushar Bharati and I run the USC Brown Bag Seminar for PhD students and PostDocs. Click here to consult our schedule or to book a slot for your presentation. Drop me an email if you need help editing the file.