Paulo Somaini

Paulo Somaini studies industrial organization, econometrics and microeconomic theory. His work shows how the behavior of agents in strategic environments can reveal their preferences and information. In "Competition and Interdependent Costs in Michigan Highway Procurement Auctions" he finds that contrary to naïve theoretical predictions, firms in Michigan did not bid more aggressively for projects closer to their competitors’ plants. He shows that firms’ response to competitive pressure reveals the extent and magnitude of the winner’s curse in this type of auctions. His most recent work analyses the assignment mechanism used to assign Kindergarten students to schools in Cambridge, MA. This work shows that while parents have strong incentives to misreport their preferences to the school district, their reports provide valuable information about how much they like each school which is useful to simulate their welfare under alternative assignment rules.