Alberto Alesina is Tommaso PadoaSchioppa Visiting Professor for the Second Time

THE HARVARD PROFESSOR ALREADY COVERED THE POSITION COFUNDED BY THE EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK IN ACADEMIC YEAR 2012 2013

Alberto Alesina, professor of Political Economy at Harvard University and a fellow at Bocconi’s IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research) since 2009, was assigned for a second time a Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa Visiting Professorship for the academic year 2014-2015. The professorship is funded by the ECB in memory of one of Bocconi’s most illustrious alumni, among the founding fathers of the Euro and member of the Executive Board of the ECB from 1998 to 2005. The ECB is co-funding the professorship for five years with the aim of bringing each year to Bocconi an outstanding international scholar to do research and to teach subjects linked to the theme of economics and European monetary policy. The ECB contributes to this aim with an annual donation of 30,000 euro.
 
First time around, in the academic year 2012-2013, Alesina spent most of his time at Bocconi working with his “usual suspects”: Eliana La Ferrara, Carlo Favero, Francesco Giavazzi, and Francesco Passarelli.  From these prolific collaborations Alesina has several important papers lined up for very good journals. In American Economic Review in 2014 with La Ferrara he published an article on racial bias in capital punishment, and his working papers with Passarelli on loss aversion in politics and with Giavazzi and Favero on the output effect of fiscal consolidations have been widely circulated.
 
So, what are Alesina’s plans for the year 2015? “I still plan on working with the same people”, he said. “With Favero and Giavazzi we have a major research project on fiscal policy and particularly on how to reduce the burden of large debts. With La Ferrara there is a chance for us to revive our productive collaboration, and there is work I plan on doing with Guido Tabellini and Passarelli”.
 
Alesina really likes spending time at Bocconi. “Together with the top places in the US, Bocconi’s Department of Economics has entered in the world elite of research departments. And Bocconi’s absolutely fantastic students make my work an enjoyment”.

by Bojana Murisic