Antonio Penta is an economic theorist who joined ICREA in October 2018. He is also Professor of Economics at UPF and at the Barcelona GSE. 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. in 2004, and in 2010 he obtained a M.A. and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. He is currently an Associate Editor of the Journal of Economic Theory and Associate Faculty at the Toulouse School of Economics. In 2017, he was awarded an ERC-Starting Grant.

Research interests

My research spans a range of areas within game theory, mechanism design and behavioral economics, combining a variety techniques and methodologies.

In game theory and mechanism design, most of my research has focused on problems of robustness with respect to various forms of model misspecification.

Within behavioral economics, my research  has mostly focused on understanding and modeling individuals’ reasoning processes. This line of research involves both experimental methodology and theoretical work, and it is aimed at developing theoretical models of reasoning which take into account the interaction between individuals’ incentives and their cognitive abilities.

Most recently, I have also engaged into more applied research, to understand the impact of Digital Marketing Agencies on the auction formats used to sell online advertisement space.  I focus both on the agencies’ new opportunities to generate surplus for their clients and on the impact on the sellers’ revenues.