Francesco Bilotta

My research combines theory, experiments, and text analysis to address questions in behavioral economics. My main agenda investigates the economic consequences of imperfect metacognition, with applications to education policy (standardized testing) and worker productivity (human-AI interaction). My second agenda explores the role of causal narratives in shaping voter behaviour. I also work on information economics and learning.

I will be on the 2026/2027 academic job market.

JOB MARKET PAPER

Imperfect Metacognition in Standardized Tests [SSRN]

This paper argues that standardized tests measure not only what students know, but also whether they know what they know and what they do not know---i.e.,their metacognition. I develop a framework that recovers metacognition from test-taking choices. When answering is costly---e.g., under penalties for errors---students with good metacognition should omit the questions they are least likely to answer correctly, improving their accuracy. Applying the framework to a large field experiment, I find that students largely fail this benchmark, because many students sort questions nearly at random and a sizable minority sort them adversely. Yet, metacognition varies substantially in the population, with systematic gender differences. Using a structural model, I quantify these patterns and decompose scores into knowledge and metacognition components. The findings suggest that interpreting scores as signals of knowledge alone entails sizable information loss, and that metacognitive differences help explain why gender score gaps widen with ability.

PUBLICATIONS/FORTHCOMING

• Bilotta, F. & Manferdini, G. – Coarse Memory and Plausible Narratives, American Economic Journal: Micreconomics (Forthcoming)

WORKING PAPERS

• Bilotta, F., Binetti, A., & Manferdini, G. – Blameocracy
• Bilotta, F., Carnehl, C., & Preusser, J. – Delegated Information Provision
• Bilotta, F., Braghieri, L., Raymond, C., & Whitmeyer, M. – Agreement and Diversity in Interpretation
• Bilotta, F., & Manferdini, G. – Policy Implementation and Congressional Rhetoric

SELECTED WORK IN PROGRESS

• Bilotta, F., Nunnari, S., & Pavoni, N. – Metacognition in Human–AI Interaction — data collection completed
• Bilotta, F., & Schipper, B. C. – Discovering Bandits