Francesco Bogliacino
Associate Professor – Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Research
I am a behavioral and experimental economics. I study Social Norms, Emotions, Social Preferences and I am interested in Behavioral Public Policy.
Working Papers
Bogliacino, F., & Guala, F. (2025). Social Norms, Expectations, and the Power of the Audience: An Experiment with Knowledge Asymmetries.
Bogliacino, F., Leonardo, P., Liva, G., & Lupiáñez-Villanueva, F. (2025, September 17). The Transaction Test: an experimental method for assessing online interfaces.
Bogliacino, F., Aycinena, D., & Kimbrough, E. (2025, April 18). Replication: Dictator Games with different endowment sources.
Bogliacino, F., Aycinena, D., & Kimbrough, E. (2024, April 2). Measuring Norms: Eliciting normative expectations with coordination games allowing for neutral report.
Bogliacino, F., Aycinena, D., & Kimbrough, E. (2023, December 15). Measuring Norms: A Comparison of the Predictive and Descriptive Power of Three Methods.
Selected Publications
No gifts returned: Surprise bonuses reduce productivity in a natural field experiment (2025), with G Grimalda and D Pipke, Management Science, https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.04085
Restoring Property Rights: The Effects of Land Restitution on Credit Access (2025), with MJ Villaveces and CM Posso, World Development, 186: 1-14
Measuring Norms: Assessing the threat of Social Desirability Bias to the Bicchieri and Xiao elicitation method (2024), with D Aycinena e E Kimbrough, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 222:225-239
Do negative economic shocks affect cognitive function, adherence to social norms and loss aversion? (2020) With F Montealegre. Journal of the Economic Science Association, 6:57–67
Socioeconomic stratification and stereotyping: Lab-in-the-field evidence from Colombia (2018), with LM Jiménez and DA Reyes, International Review of Economics 65(1): 77-118
Exposure to and recall of violence reduce short-term memory and cognitive control (2017), with G Grimalda, P Ortoleva, and P Ring, PNAS, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1704651114
Endogenous Skill Biased Technical Change: testing for demand pull effect (2016) With M. Lucchese. Industrial and Corporate Change, 25(2): 227–243
Profits, R&D and Innovation: a Model and a Test (2013) with M. Pianta Industrial and Corporate Change 22(3): 649-678,
R&D and Employment: An application of the LSDVC estimator using European Microdata (2012) with M. Piva and M. Vivarelli, Economics Letters, vol 116, pp 56-59
Innovation and Employment. An Investigation using Revised Pavitt classes (2010) with M. Pianta Research Policy, vol 39(6), pp 799-809
Advanced Courses
Interested in Advanced Course for your PhD? Let’s Talk. Here are the most recent courses that I developed and taught in PhD programs You can find more information on my teahcing experience on my cv, downloadable here.
Social Norms
In this course, we will address the hypothesis that our choices are governed by social norms – widely shared, context-dependent rules of behavior. We will begin by examining why traditional assumptions about social preferences or income/price effects find it difficult to account for several behavioral stylized facts. Next, we will define social norms and discuss to what extent they are useful in explaining behavior. In the second part of the course, we will take an in-depth look at experimental methods used to measure norms, assessing their robustness. We will conclude by analyzing how we can design incentives when social norms are involved, and we will explore the drivers of norm compliance.
FrontEnd for Online Experiments
This intensive course provides a practical introduction to designing online experiments using JavaScript. Throughout the sessions, students will learn how to create and implement interactive experiments, program custom interfaces, build the corresponding database, and analyze it. Participants will also learn about integration with popular platforms such as Qualtrics, OpenLab, and Prolific for experiment administration.
Info for Students
Office hours: Thursday at 5 p.m., Via Necchi 5, 1st floor. You are also welcome to email me, so we can schedule an online meeting.
If you’re interested in research or in writing a thesis, I’m happy to discuss possibilities—but my availability fills up quickly. Please reach out at the beginning of the semester. I generally prefer to propose the research topic.
If you’re looking for reading recommendations or guidance on starting research in behavioral or experimental economics, feel free to stop by during office hours.
Media and public outreach
In my Qwoted profile, you can find a selection of interviews, op-ed, and other media coverage.
You are welcome to contact me for interviews, quotes, background briefings, or other media requests
Examples of past initiatives
In my role as Director of the CID at UNAL, I coordinated eight different intiatives of economic analysis of policy documents, analysis of the programs of candidates to major elected positions in Colombia, and policy proposal by my Department. Details are in my cv.
Contact me
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimento di Politica Economica, Via Necchi, 5, 20123 Milano, Italy
francesco (dot) bogliacino (at) unicatt (dot) it
(+39) 02 7234 2797