Alberto Francesco Alesina (29 April 1957 – 23 May 2020) was an Italian
political economist
Political economy is the study of how economic systems (e.g. markets and national economies) and political systems (e.g. law, institutions, government) are linked. Widely studied phenomena within the discipline are systems such as labour m ...
. Described as one of the leading political economists of his generation, he published many influential works in both the economics and political science research literature.
Background and professional life
Alesina was born in
Broni
Broni is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Pavia in the Italian region Lombardy, located about 45 km south of Milan and about 15 km southeast of Pavia.
Broni borders the following municipalities: Albaredo Arnaboldi, Barbia ...
, Lombardy, Italy. He obtained his undergraduate degree in economics from
Bocconi University
Bocconi University ( it, Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi, ) is a private university in Milan, Italy. Bocconi provides education in the fields of economics, finance, law, management, political science, public administration and comput ...
.
From 2003 to 2006, Alesina served as Chairman of the Department of Economics at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
. He was the Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy at Harvard. He visited several institutions including
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
(MIT),
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv University (TAU) ( he, אוּנִיבֶרְסִיטַת תֵּל אָבִיב, ''Universitat Tel Aviv'') is a public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Locate ...
,
University of Stockholm
Stockholm University ( sv, Stockholms universitet) is a public research university in Stockholm, Sweden, founded as a college in 1878, with university status since 1960. With over 33,000 students at four different faculties: law, humanities, soci ...
,
The World Bank
The World Bank Group (WBG) is a family of five international organizations that make leveraged loans to developing countries. It is the largest and best-known development bank in the world and an observer at the United Nations Development G ...
, and the
International Monetary Fund
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 190 countries. Its stated mission is "working to foster glo ...
(IMF). In 2006, Alesina participated in the
Stock Exchange of Visions {{Unreferenced, date=August 2007
The Stock Exchange of Visions is a project initiated in 2006 by Fabrica, Benetton's research center. It gathers visionaries from diverse nationalities and cultures, who hail from a wide range of specialties, to prov ...
project.
He published five books and edited many more. His two most recent books were ''The Future of Europe: Reform or Decline'' (2006, MIT Press), and ''Fighting Poverty in the US and Europe: A World of Difference'' (2004, Oxford). He was a co-editor of the ''
Quarterly Journal of Economics
''The Quarterly Journal of Economics'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Oxford University Press for the Harvard University Department of Economics. Its current editors-in-chief are Robert J. Barro, Lawrence F. Katz, Nathan ...
'' for eight years and associate editor of many academic journals. He published columns in many leading newspapers around the world. He was a founding contributor of the online economic policy and research journal Voxeu.org and of Lavoce.info.
Alesina's work covered a variety of topics, including:
* Political
business cycles
Business cycles are intervals of expansion followed by recession in economic activity. These changes have implications for the welfare of the broad population as well as for private institutions. Typically business cycles are measured by examini ...
* The political economy of
fiscal policy
In economics and political science, fiscal policy is the use of government revenue collection (taxes or tax cuts) and expenditure to influence a country's economy. The use of government revenue expenditures to influence macroeconomic variab ...
and
budget deficits
The government budget balance, also alternatively referred to as general government balance, public budget balance, or public fiscal balance, is the overall difference between government revenues and spending. A positive balance is called a '' ...
inflation
In economics, inflation is an increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy. When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation corresponds to a reduct ...
countries
*
Currency union
A currency union (also known as monetary union) is an intergovernmental agreement that involves two or more states sharing the same currency. These states may not necessarily have any further integration (such as an economic and monetary union, ...
s
* The political economic determinants of re-distributive policies
* Differences in the
welfare state
A welfare state is a form of government in which the state (or a well-established network of social institutions) protects and promotes the economic and social well-being of its citizens, based upon the principles of equal opportunity, equita ...
in the US and Europe
* Differences in the economic system in the US and Europe
* The effect of alternative electoral systems on economic policies
* The determination of the choice of different electoral systems
Alesina was a member of the
National Bureau of Economic Research
The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is an American private nonprofit research organization "committed to undertaking and disseminating unbiased economic research among public policymakers, business professionals, and the academic c ...
(Cambridge, Massachusetts), the
Centre for Economic Policy Research
The Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) is an independent, non‐partisan, pan‐European non‐profit organisation. Its mission is to enhance the quality of policy decisions through providing policy‐relevant research, based soundly in e ...
in London, and the
Econometric Society
The Econometric Society is an international society of academic economists interested in applying statistical tools to their field. It is an independent organization with no connections to societies of professional mathematicians or statisticians. ...
. He was elected a Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...
in 2006.
Death
Alesina died from a suspected heart attack on 23 May 2020, while hiking with his wife, Susan. In 2021, Harvard University renamed its political economy workshop in Alesina's honor.
Austerity
Alesina was an influential proponent of austerity during the
Great Recession
The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At ...
. He argued that austerity can be expansionary in situations where government reduction in spending is offset by greater increases in aggregate demand (private consumption, private investment and exports). A credible fiscal consolidation would reduce private actors' uncertainty and lower the risk premium. Assuming that
Ricardian equivalence
The Ricardian equivalence proposition (also known as the Ricardo–de Viti–Barro equivalence theorem) is an economic hypothesis holding that consumers are forward-looking and so internalize the government's budget constraint when making their co ...
and the
Permanent income hypothesis
The permanent income hypothesis (PIH) is a model in the field of economics to explain the formation of consumption patterns. It suggests consumption patterns are formed from future expectations and consumption smoothing. The theory was develope ...
hold, actors' expected future wealth would increase and induce them to consume more.
In October 2009 Alesina and Silvia Ardagna published "Large Changes in Fiscal Policy: Taxes Versus Spending", a much-cited academic paper aimed at showing that fiscal austerity measures did not hurt economies, and actually helped their recovery. On 6 June 2013, U.S. economist and 2008 Nobel laureate
Paul Krugman
Paul Robin Krugman ( ; born February 28, 1953) is an American economist, who is Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and a columnist for ''The New York Times''. In 2008, Krugman was ...
published "How the Case for Austerity Has Crumbled" in ''The New York Review of Books'', noting how influential these articles have been with policymakers, describing the paper by the 'Bocconi Boys' Alesina and Ardagna (from the name of their Italian alma mater) as "a full frontal assault on the
Keynesian
Keynesian economics ( ; sometimes Keynesianism, named after British economist John Maynard Keynes) are the various macroeconomic theories and models of how aggregate demand (total spending in the economy) strongly influences economic output an ...
proposition that cutting spending in a weak economy produces further weakness", arguing the reverse.
More recently, studies by the IMF and others have cast doubt on the methodological underpinning of Alesina's work and conclude that the evidence is more likely to suggest a contractionary effect of fiscal consolidation.Imported flagship issues IMF
Selected publications
Books
* 1995. ''Partisan Politics, Divided Government and the Economy'' (with Howard Rosenthal). Cambridge Description & TOC an preview. * 1997a. ''Political Cycles and the Macroeconomy'' (with
Nouriel Roubini
Nouriel Roubini (born March 9 1958) is a Turkish-born Iranian-American economist. He is Professor Emeritus (2021–present) and was Professor of Economics (1995–2021) at the Stern School of Business, New York University, and also chairman of Ro ...
& Gerald D. Cohen). MIT Press. Description and chapter-previe links. * 1997b. ''Designing Macroeconomic Policy for Europe'' (with
Olivier Blanchard
Olivier Jean Blanchard (; born December 27, 1948) is a French economist and professor who is a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He was the chief economist at the International Monetary Fund from September 1, 2 ...
'' ''et al.''), CEPR, London.
* 2003. ''The Size of Nations'' (with Enrico Spolaore). MIT Press Description and chapter-previe links. * 2004. ''Fighting Poverty in the US and Europe: A World of Difference'' (with
Edward Glaeser
Edward Ludwig Glaeser (born May 1, 1967) is an American economist and Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics at Harvard University. He is also Director for the Cities Research Programme at the International Growth Centre.
He was educated ...
). Oxford Description and "slide-show summary and chapter-preview links via "select click
* 2006. ''The Future of Europe: Reform or Decline'' (with
Francesco Giavazzi
Francesco Giavazzi (born 11 August 1949 in Bergamo) is an Italian economist who is Professor of Economics at Bocconi University, and a regular visiting professor at MIT.
Biography
Giavazzi graduated in electrical engineering from the Politecnico ...
:Press + to enlarge small-font links below.
* 1987. "Macroeconomic Policy in a Two-Party System as a Repeated Game," ''Quarterly Journal of Economics'', 102(3), pp. 651 678.
* 1988b. "Macroeconomics and Politics," ''NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1988, Volume 3'', pp. 13–62.
* 1991. "Why Are Stabilizations Delayed?" (with Allan Drazen), ''American Economic Review'', 81(5), pp 1170–1188. * 1993. "Central Bank Independence and Macroeconomic Performance: Some Comparative Evidence" (with Lawrence H. Summers), ''Journal of Money, Credit and Banking'', 25(2), pp. 151 162.
* 1994. "Distributive Politics and Economic Growth" (with Dani Rodrik), ''Quarterly Journal of Economics'', 109(2), pp. 465 490.
* 1995. "The Political Economy of Budget Deficits" (with Roberto Perotti), IMF ''Staff Papers'', 42(1), pp pp. 1 31.
* 1996a. "Political Instability and Economic Growth" (with Sule Özler ''et al.''), ''Journal of Economic Growth'', 1(2), pp. 189 211
*
* 1996b. "Income Distribution, Political Instability, and Investment," (with Roberto Perotti), ''European Economic Review'', 40(6), pp. 1203–1228 Abstract. * 1997. "On the Number and Size of Nations" (with Enrico Spolaore), ''Quarterly Journal of Economics'', 112(4), pp. 1027 1056.
* 1999. "Public Goods and Ethnic Divisions" (with Reza Baqir &
William Easterly
William Russell Easterly (born September 7, 1957) is an American economist, specializing in economic development. He is a professor of economics at New York University, joint with Africa House, and co-director of NYU’s Development Research Inst ...
), ''Quarterly Journal of Economics'', 114(4), pp 1243–1284.
* 2000a. "Who Gives Foreign Aid to Whom and Why?" (with David Dollar), ''Journal of Economic Growth'', 5(1), pp. 33 63.
* 2000b. "Participation in Heterogeneous Communities" (with Eliana La Ferrara), ''Quarterly Journal of Economics'', 115(3), pp. 847 904.
* 2002a. "Who Trusts Others?" ''Journal of Public Economics'', 85(2), pp. 207–234 (close Pages tab).
* 2002b. "Fiscal Policy, Profits, and Investment" (with Silvia Ardagna ''et al.''), ''American Economic Review'', 92(3), pp 571–589. * 2003. "Fractionalization" (with Arnaud Devleeschauwer ''et al.''), ''Journal of Economic Growth'', 8(2), pp. 155 194.
* 2004. "Inequality and Happiness: Are Europeans and Americans Different?" (with Rafael Di Tellab and Robert MacCulloch), ''Journal of Public Economics'', 88(9–10), pp 2009–2042 (close Bookmarks tab).
* 2005a. "International Unions" (with Ignazio Angeloni and Federico Etro), ''American Economic Review'', 95(3), pp. 602 615.
* 2005b. "Ethnic Diversity and Economic Performance" (with Eliana La Ferrara), ''Journal of Economic Literature'', 43(3), pp 762–800. * 2007:3. "Political Economy," ''NBER Reporter'', pp 1–5 (press +).
* 2010. "Large Changes in Fiscal Policy: Taxes versus Spending" (with Silvia Ardagna), in J. R. Brown, ed., ''Tax Policy and the Economy'', v. 24, ch. 2, pp. 35–68.
*2013. "On the Origins of Gender Roles: Women and the Plough" (with Paola Giuliano and Nathan Nunn), Quarterly Journal of Economics. 2013; 128 (2) : 469–530.
* 2015. "The Output Effect of Fiscal Consolidations" (with Carlo Favero and Francesco Giavazzi), ''Journal of International Economics'', vol 96, pages S19-S42.
* 2016. "Ethnic Inequality" (with Stelios Michalopoulos and Elias Papaioannou), '' Journal of Political Economy'', vol. 124(2), pages 428-488
* 2016. "Birthplace Diversity and Economic Prosperity" (with Johann Harnoss and Hillel Rapoport), ''
Journal of Economic Growth
The ''Journal of Economic Growth'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering research in economic growth and dynamic macroeconomics. It was established in 1996 and is published by Springer Science+Business Media.Harvard Faculty page.