Background and Professional Life
Born in Broni, Pavia, Italy, Alesina obtained his undergraduate degree in economics from Bocconi University (DES) in 1981, then continued his studies at Harvard University, receiving an M.A. (1985) and a Ph.D. (1986). Alesina was then a post.doc. and assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University.
From 2003–2006, Alesina served as Chairman of the Department of Economics at Harvard. He is currently the Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy at Harvard. He has visited several institutions including Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Tel Aviv University, University of Stockholm, The World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In 2006, Alesina participated in the Stock Exchange of Visions project.
He has published five books and edited many more. His two most recent books are 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 has been a co-editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics for eight years and associate editor of many academic journals. He has published columns in many leading newspapers around the world. He is founding contributor of the online economic policy and research journal Voxeu.org and of Lavoce.info.
Alesina's work has covered a variety of topics, including:
- Political business cycles
- The political economy of fiscal policy and budget deficits
- The process of European integration
- Stabilization policies in high inflation countries
- The determination of the size of countries
- Currency unions
- The political economic determinants of redistributive policies
- Differences in the welfare state 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 is a member of the National Bureau of Economic Research (Cambridge, Massachusetts), the Centre for Economic Policy Research in London, and the Econometric Society. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2006.
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