Research Above All

A LOVE FOR ECONOMICS, BORN LATE AND CULTIVATED THROUGH INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES. JEROME ADDA, PROFESSOR IN THE DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS AND DEAN FOR RESEARCH AT BOCCONI UNIVERSITY, TALKS ABOUT HIMSELF. AND, SPEAKING OF RESEARCH, HE RECALLS THE IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTION TO THE FIGHT AGAINST COVID 19 PRODUCED BY THE SCHOLARS OF BOCCONI'S COVID CRISIS LAB SINCE THE BEGINNING OF THE PANDEMIC

The economy was not his first calling. With a degree in biochemistry, for Jérôme Adda, Professor in the Department of Economics and Dean for Research at Bocconi University, the vocation for economic science came later, at the time of pursuing a PhD. Fascinated by the poster of a program in the field and against everyone's opinion, he decides to take a Master in Economics.

Thus he begins his journey on the road to economics
I found it fascinating that one could describe and try to understand human behavior in a formal way. Having said that, my way into economics was even more torturous. As an Assistant Professor in London, I had a dual appointment in Economics and in Epidemiology for many years. I learned what interdisciplinary meant, how rewarding and complicated it can be. Academic disciplines can be very different in terms of approaches, language and methods even if they try to describe the same phenomenon. One has to learn the language of the other discipline to engage with them.

How do you see the research at Bocconi during the Covid Crisis?
In the last two years, research on Covid-19 has been a frontline field and many researchers redoubled their efforts working both on their own topics and on Covid-19, to contribute rapidly and achieve more results in the fight against the virus. Bocconi, and its researchers, was particularly committed, creating already in May 2020 the Covid Crisis Lab, a multidisciplinary research laboratory that has involved all Bocconi departments and research centers. More than 40 researchers have engaged in research projects in four thematic areas - health; society; economics, finance and firms; and legal issues. And Bocconi researchers have published numerous studies in leading scientific journals, giving their contribution to policy makers engaged in making important decisions for the lives of citizens and nations. I started studying epidemics before Covid-19 and now I’ve an ongoing study about epidemics in relation to individual behaviors.
But we live in a digital era and, even more so when we are in an emergency, we are urged to communicate fast. So the risk is to communicate results to the public before they have been validated and before there is consensus about them. A confusing communication can decrease people's trust in scientific advice, because they see researchers arguing. However, arguing is part of the generating process of scientific facts. Researchers never agree at first but, in the end, many disagreements become agreements.
 
Do you think the scientific community produced confusing communication about Covid-19?
I think research needs time to build a consensus but in the last two years, given the urgency, the temptation was to draw conclusions and give advice after just a few weeks. Time is important. Normally, two or three years are needed to probe results, to produce answers. I understand the will to be useful for society, but there is also a longer-term issue that is society’s trust in science. This is an important capital and eroding that is very dangerous for our profession but also for society in general. An example is the medical and policy debate about the usefulness of masks that came about early in the crisis. At the start, there was genuine uncertainty of how efficient such a policy could be, especially at population level. This debate was perceived by the wider public as a sign that scientists could not be trusted, and it created confusion and undermined subsequent policies.
 
What role does Bocconi University have in supporting research? And you as Dean for Research?
Bocconi is a research university - it produces impactful knowledge that it then brings into the classroom. The condition to do so is to create the right environment, made up of skills but also of services, in order to attract the best researchers. We have succeeded in creating the right ecosystem and the data confirm this. Every year we attract new professors from all over the world (this year as many as 25) and the number of our ERC grants, the most important European research funding, is constantly growing. To date, we have hosted as many as 40 projects.
The final goal is to encourage research, good quality studies, because quality makes the difference in research and also allows Bocconi to compete with the most renowned universities in the world. In this way Bocconi stays at the top of global university rankings, of which research makes up around 70-80% of the total scores. This year, despite the crisis, we published the highest number of A+ articles ever. This is a fantastic achievement, and it speaks to the quality of our faculty. As Dean, and as Research Committee (ReCo) Chairman, together with the University we try to provide organization, services and the right incentives to make people more productive in the right way. We also provide funds to start studies, essentially for juniors. They can have more difficulties, than seniors, to find the first budget to kick off their work.
 
Biography
Family Economics, Labor Economics and Health Economics are some of the issues Jérôme Adda has investigated most in depth. His principal contributions have been on the effect of public policies on health behavior, the analysis of the spread of diseases, the links between income and health, the role of human capital on career choices and wage growth over the life-cycle. Adda earned his PhD in Economics at the University of Paris (Sorbonne), after studying Biology at AgroParisTech and Economics and Statistics at ENSAE (École nationale de la statistique et de l'administration économique) in Paris. He is a professor of Economics at Bocconi University since 2014. Before that, he was a professor at the European University Institute (Florence), as well as a Professor at University College London. He was a managing editor for the Review of Economic Studies, from 2013 to 2017, and again in 2021.

by Camillo Papini