About Me

Hello, I am a third-year PhD student (5th year in the Programme) interested in Political Economy and Economic Theory.

My supervisors are Francesco Squintani and Costas Cavounidis.

Research Papers

A Theory of Developmental Dictatorship

Winner of the "Best Graduate Paper" award at the 13th UECE Game Theory Lisbon meetings

I study dictators' development strategies when such development simultaneously increases future rents and threatens regime stability. The dictator's investment leads to increased provision of education as parents consider their children's future prospects. This, in turn, increases children's human capital and fosters their desire for democratic institutions. I identify a trade-off between pursuing higher future returns with an increasing threat of democratisation and accepting lower returns for a more stable regime. The optimal strategy is to invest heavily in an underdeveloped economy for higher future rents, but to reduce investment as the economy matures. Democracy follows an opposite investment trend: little investment is made when the economy is underdeveloped, but more investment is made as it develops. My framework suggests a potential mechanism to explain the scarcity of advanced economies under autocratic regimes, as well as their historical presence among the fastest growing countries.

The Choice of Political Advisors (with Francesco Squintani)

We study the choice of multiple advisors, balancing political alignment, competence, and diverse perspectives. An imperfectly informed leader can consult one or two advisors. One has views closely aligned with the leader’s, but his information is imprecise or correlated with the leader’s own. The other is more biased but has independent or more precise information. We identify a trade-off between consulting the more aligned or the better informed expert, even when this entails small costs. Subtle comparative statics emerge: When the leader consults both advisors, increasing the bias of the more biased expert may result in the dismissal of the other advisor. The leader may opt to delegate consulting and decision-making, but only to the advisor who collects superior information in equilibrium. We then study the “uncertain trade-off” case where the most informed advisor is not necessarily also more biased. We find that reducing the probability that the better-informed expert is more biased may lead to hiring also the other advisor. The leader may delegate to the advisor with uncertain bias, although he is more biased in expectation, because he more easily aggregates information in equilibrium.