Michele Fioretti

University of Southern California
​Department of Economics

email: ​fioretti@usc.edu

CV: [pdf]

I am a PhD candidate at the University of Southern California. My primary research interests are Empirical Industrial Organization, Behavioral Economics and Applied Microeconomics.

​I am on the job market in 2018/19, and I will be available for interviews at the EEA meeting in Naples (6-7 December) and at the ASSA meeting in Atlanta (4-6 January).

---

Job Market Paper:

Giving for profit or giving to give: the profitability of corporate social responsibility
Best Paper Award @ EEA-ESEM 2018
[soon]

Working Papers:

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 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.

The price of water and dynamic spillovers: hydropower generation in Colombia
with Jorge Tamayo
[soon]

Altruism and firm profits
with Kenneth Chuk
[pdf] [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.

Work in Progress:

Complementarities between teacher, school, and student inputs
with  Elena Manresa, Olga Namen and Petra Thiemann

Regret in auctions: an fMRI study
with  Nadège Bault, Giorgio Coricelli and Nicholas Menghi

Sorting and selection in private Medicare
with  Alejandro Robinson-Cortés and Hongming Wang

Published Work:

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

---

References:

Prof. Geert Ridder
Department of Economics
University of Southern California
ridder@usc.edu

Prof. Hyunsuik Roger Moon 
Department of Economics
University of Southern California
moonr@usc.edu
​

Prof. Giorgio Coricelli 
Department of Economics
University of Southern California
giorgio.coricelli@usc.edu

Prof. Sha Yang
Marshall School of Business
​University of Southern California
shayang@marshall.usc.edu