Dr Federica Alberti

I am Senior Lecturer in Economics and Finance. I have particular expertise in behavioural and experimental economics, with an emphasis on public goods games.

I have contributed to the following journal articles:

• Concession bargaining: an experimental comparison of protocols and time horizons
• Full agreement and the provision of threshold public goods
• Does the endowment of contributors make a difference in threshold public-good games?
• Studying deception without deceiving participants: an experiment of deception experiments
• Salience as an emergent property

I was also Associate Editor–for a special issue on public goods–of Games, the scholarly, peer-reviewed, open access journal of strategic interaction, game theory and decision making.

I am keen to widen participation in the study of economics. I secured financial support from the Royal Economic Society–through its 'Discover Economics' initiative–for a conference promoting economics to girls in Portsmouth.  I have established within my faculty a 'Women in Economics' network as an events platform for young female economists.

I coordinate and teach Public Sector Economics, an optional, final year, undergraduate module. I also teach behavioural economics on the optional, second-year module Behavioural Economics and Game Theory.

I act as personal tutor to undergraduate students. I supervise final year, undergraduate projects, Master's dissertations and PhD research.

I am happy to receive applications relating to PhD research in behavioural economics.

My research interests include public goods provision, trust, and fairness in institutions. I design experiments to test theories.

I have recently completed four projects that have produced five papers:

• ‘How do we choose whom to trust? The effect of social networks on trust’ (with Anna Conte, Daniela Di Cagno and Emanuela Sciubba)
• ‘Implementing stakeholder participation as egalitarian bidding’ (with Werner Güth, Hartmut Kliemt and Kei Tsutsui)
• ‘Effects of institutionalising procedurally fair co-determination - an experimental analysis’ (with Werner Güth and Kei Tsutsui)
• ‘Provision of continuous noxious facilities using a market-like mechanism: A simple implementation in the lab’ (with César Mantilla)
• ‘Learning direction theory and threshold public goods games’ (with Anna Cartwright and Edward Cartwright)

In terms of research impact, my work on public goods games may contribute to explaining why public projects that require a minimum total contribution (such as a bridge, a hospital facility, or even international cooperation to prevent catastrophic climate change) are not provided efficiently. It may also lead to the implementation of mechanisms for the provision of public projects (e.g. a waste facility) that, while beneficial to society, may cause harm to local communities.

I am happy to take calls and emails from the media on my research, and I am aware of the need to respond to journalists in a timely manner. Please contact me at federica.alberti@port.ac.uk or on +44 23 9284 4270.