Alberto Alesina, Professor of Economics at Harvard and Bocconi, and one of the most illustrious Italian economists of our time, suddenly passed away on May 23, 2020

Alberto Alesina, Professor of Economics at Harvard and Bocconi, and one of the most illustrious Italian economists of our time, suddenly passed away on May 23, 2020.  

The Collegio joins the global scientific community in mourning the death of Alberto, a former member of our Board of Directors and a long-time friend of our institution. 

Below, a remembrance of Alberto Alesina by Prof. Pietro Garibaldi, who was the Director of the Collegio during Alberto Alesina’s term in our Board.

Alberto Alesina passed away on May 23, 2020. He was professor of Economics at Harvard University and visiting professor at Bocconi university.

Arguably, he was the best Italian economist. He founded the modern “political economics”, jointly with Guido Tabellini e Torsten Persson. Alberto Alesina was certainly the most cited.  He has more than one hundred and twenty thousand entries on google scholar and an h-index of 124. Those citations will certainly increase in the years to come.

He was also an editorialist at Corriere della Sera, where he often co-signed his pieces with his friend Francesco Giavazzi. When I was heading the Collegio, I had the privilege to have him as a member of the Board of Directors between 2008 and 2012.  He had a clear scientific vision on the direction the Collegio should take. I admired his intelligence and his wit.

I am sure that all the Collegio community and the University of Torino will mourn the loss of a great economist and a great Italian fellow.

Pietro Garibaldi