Mariagiovanna Baccara

Mariagiovanna Baccara is a Full Professor of Economics at the Olin School of Business, Washington University in St. Louis. She holds affiliated faculty status in the Department of Economics at Washington University’s School of Arts & Sciences. Previously, she served as Associate Professor (2013–2021) and Assistant Professor (2010–2012) at Washington University, and Assistant Professor at NYU Stern School of Business (2002–2010). She earned her Ph.D. and M.A. in Economics from Princeton University (2003) and a B.A. in Economics from the University of Trieste (Summa cum Laude).

Her research focuses on game theory, market design, social networks, and industrial organization. Key areas include group formation, dynamic matching, information leakage in organizations, intellectual property rights, and asset pricing. She has published in top journals like the American Economic Review, Review of Economic Studies, and Theoretical Economics. Recent work explores peer selection dynamics, optimal matching algorithms, and experimental behavioral economics.

Baccara has received prestigious awards, including the Society for Advancements of Economic Theory Fellowship (2022) and the European Economic Association Young Economist Award (2005). She serves on editorial boards for journals such as Theoretical Economics and the American Economic Journal: Microeconomics. Active in academic leadership, she chairs the Tenured Faculty at Olin and directs the MBA programs.

Her teaching spans MBA, PhD, and undergraduate levels, covering managerial economics, game theory, industrial organization, and applied problem-solving. She advises numerous PhD students, many of whom now hold academic and industry roles. Baccara also engages in outreach, co-authoring 'Finding the Balance between Research and Teaching' in a crowdsourced economics handbook.