Antonio Penta

Antonio Penta

Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Social & Behavioural Sciences

Antonio Penta is an economic theorist who joined ICREA in October 2018. He is also Professor of Economics at UPF and Affiliated Professor at the Barcelona School of Economics. Prior to that, he was Assistant Professor (2010-2016) and then tenured Associate Professor (2016-2018) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He graduated in Economics from Bocconi Univ (2004), and then he obtained a M.A. (2008) and a PhD (2010) in economics from the University of Pennsylvania. He is currently member of the Editorial Board of the American Economic Review and of the Review of Economic Studies, Associate Editor of the Journal of Economic Theory, Theoretical Economics and of Decisions in Economics and Finance, Associate Faculty at the Toulouse School of Economics, and a member of the TSE Digital Center. He has been awarded an ERC-Starting Grant in 2017, and an ERC-Consolidator Grant in 2022. Personal homepage: https://www.antoniopenta.eu/

Research interests

My research spans a range of areas within game theory, mechanism design, behavioral economics and auction theory. In game theory and mechanism design, most of my research has focused on questions of robustness with respect to various forms of model misspecification. I have also worked on more applied IO topics, concerning the market for online advertisement and online ad auctions, from both a theoretical and empirical perspective. Within behavioral economics, my work has been both theoretical and experimental. So far the main focus has been on understanding and modeling individuals’ reasoning processes, and particularly the interaction between their cognitve abilities and incentives, in strategic settings as well as in individual decision problems. More recently, I started a new agenda on risk preferences.

Selected publications

- Ollar M & Penta A 2023, 'A Network Solution to Robust Implementation: The Case of Identical but Unknown Distributions', Review Of Economic Studies, rdac084.
- Decarolis F, Goldmanis M, Penta A & Shakhgildyan K 2023, 'Bid Coordination in Sponsored Search Auctions: Detection Methodology and Empirical Analysis', Journal Of Industrial Economics, 71, 2, 570-592.

Selected research activities

Organized Conferences, 2023:
  • 2023 Workshop on the Design of Strategic Interactions, Venice (Italy)
  • 2023 BSE Summer Forum, Coordination and Social Interactions, Barcelona (Spain)
  • 2023 BSE Summer Forum, Preferences and Bounded Rationality, Barcelona (Spain)
Invited Conferences, 2023:
  • Workshop on the Design of Strategic Interactions, Venice (Italy)
  • Keynote Speaker, UNSW-UQ Economic Theory Festival (Univ. of Queensland, Brisbane, AU)
  • Conference in Memory of Bill Sandholm (UW-Madison, USA).
  • XXIII-SAET Conference on Mathematical Economics, Paris (FR)
  • Third Catalan Economic Theory Conference, Barcelona (Spain).
  • Economic Theory Conference in Honor of George J. Mailath's 65th Birthday (UPenn, USA)
Invited Seminars, 2023:
  • NYU-Abu Dhabi, Center for Behavioral Institutional Design (UAE)
  • Princeton University, Behavioral Economics Seminar)
  • Heidelberg University, Econ. Departmental Seminar
  • Univ. of Warwick, Economic Theory Seminar, Warwick (UK)
Scientific Committee, 2023:
  • EWMES: Econometric Society European Winter Meeting, Maastricht (Netherlands); Committee Member
  • Congress of the European Economic Association, Barcelona (Spain); Lead Committee Coordinator of the Economic Theory area.
  • 2023 Third Catalan Economic Theory Conference, Barcelona (Spain); Committee Member