Lunch Seminar: Francesco Squintani, University of Warwick, UK

Supported by the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR) 17539924

Abstract

I study strategic information disclosure in networks. When agents' preferences are sufficiently diverse, the optimal network is the line in which the agents are ordered according to their ideologies. Such optimal networks obtain as Nash equilibria of a game in which each link requires sponsorship by both connected agents and are the unique strongly pairwise stable networks. These results overturns classical results of non-strategic information transmission in networks, where the optimal and pairwise stable network is the star.

In political economy environments such as networks of policy-makers, interest groups, or judges, these results suggest positive and normative rationales for "horizontal" links between like-minded agents in political networks, as opposed to hierarchical networks, that have been shown to be optimal in organizations where agents' preferences are more closely aligned.

When political agents are partitioned in ideologically diverse groups, each composed of agents with similar views, it is optimal for all politicians that the groups segregate into factions: stars whose only links are with ideologically close groups through star centers (the faction leaders). A normative case for factionalization is thus provided.

Francesco Squintani was born in Cremona, Italy, in April 1971, where I lived until going to University in Milan, at Universita Bocconi in September 1990. I graduated in Economics and Statistics (DES), with honors in July 1995. In August 1995, I started a PhD in Economics at Northwestern University, in Evanston, IL, that I completed in June 2000, with Eddie Dekel and Juuso Valimaki as my advisers. In June 2000, I took an Assistant Professorship at the University of Rochester, Department of Economics, with Hugo Hopenhayn and John Duggan as my mentors; this position was renewed in June 2003. In September 2003, I have been tenured with a Lectureship (Assistant Professorship) in Economics at the University College, London. In November 2006, I have become Professore Ordinario at the Universita degli Studi di Brescia, Faculty of Economics and Management, then Professor at the University of Essex, Department of Economic, in September 2007, and then Professor at the University of Warwick, Department of Economics, in May 2011.

My main publications are on the American Economic Review, the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Political Economy, the Review of Economic Studies, and the Journal of Economic Theory. I have presented my work in a number of international conferences and of University research seminars (including all top 20 worldwide). I have held visiting positions at Princeton University, the University of California at Los Angeles, the London School of Economics, the London Business School, Bocconi University, the University of Illinois, the European University Institute, the Institut d'Analisi Economica - Barcelona and the EIEF - Bank of Italy.

I am a Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (Organizational Economics Programme and Political Economy Research Group). I am the Director of the Quantitative and Analytical Political Economy Research Centre (QAPEC) at the Economics Department, University of Warwick, one of the founding research groups of the European Political Economy Consortium (EPEC), together with Bocconi University - PERICLES, London School of Economics - PSPE, University of Mannheim - SFB 884, Pompeu Fabra - IPEG, University of Toulouse - IAST, and a founding member of the Political Economy UK Research Group (PolEconUK). I am a Research Fellow of the Centre for Applied Research on International Markets, Money Banking and Regulation at Bocconi University.