Alberto Alesina Explained

Alberto Alesina
Birth Date:29 April 1957
Birth Place:Broni, Lombardy, Italy
Institution:Harvard University
Field:Macroeconomics
Political economy
Alma Mater:Harvard University (PhD)
Bocconi University (Laurea)
Doctoral Advisor:Jeffrey Sachs[1]
Doctoral Students:Silvana Tenreyro[2]
Repec Prefix:f
Repec Id:pal207
Education:Bocconi University
Harvard University

Alberto Francesco Alesina (29 April 1957 – 23 May 2020) was an Italian economist who was the Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University from 2003 until his death in 2020.[3] He was known principally as an economist of politics and culture, and was famed for his usage of economic tools to study social and political issues.[4] [5] He was described as having “almost single-handedly” established the modern field of political economy, and as a likely contender for the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.[6] [7]

Background and professional life

Alberto Alesina was born in Broni in 1957. His father was an engineer and industrial manager, and his mother was a teacher. He attended a classical lyceum in Milan, before enrolling at Bocconi University to study economics and social sciences, where he received a laurea in 1981. He then went on to graduate study at Harvard University, where he received a PhD in economics in 1986.[8] His doctoral adviser at Harvard was Jeffrey Sachs.

From 1986 to 1987, Alesina was a postdoctoral fellow in political economy at Carnegie Mellon University. He joined the faculty of Harvard University in 1987, where he was an assistant professor of economics and government between 1987 and 1993, the Paul Sack Associate Professor of Political Economy from 1991 to 1993, a full professor of economics and government from 1993 to 2003, and the Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy from 2003 till his death in 2020. He chaired the Department of Economics at Harvard between 2003 and 2006.[9]

Alesina became a research associate at the NBER in 1993, and founded its Political Economy Program in 2006.[10] He was a co-editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics between 1998 and 2004. He was elected a Fellow of the Econometric Society in 2002, and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2006.[11] [12]

Alesina's work covered a variety of topics at the confluence of politics, sociology, and economics, including:

During the Great Recession in Europe, Alesina aroused controversy as an advocate of fiscal austerity.[13] [14] 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).[15] A credible fiscal consolidation would reduce private actors' uncertainty and lower the risk premium. Assuming that Ricardian equivalence and the permanent income hypothesis hold, actors' expected future wealth would increase and induce them to consume more.[16] In October 2009, Alesina and Silvia Ardagna published "Large Changes in Fiscal Policy: Taxes Versus Spending",[17] a widely-cited academic paper aimed at showing that fiscal austerity measures did not hurt economies, and actually helped their recovery.

Alesina’s advocacy of austerity was strongly criticised by Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, who published "How the Case for Austerity Has Crumbled" in the New York Review of Books in June 2013, in which he noted the influence of pro-austerity articles authored by Alesina and his supporters, and described the work of the “Bocconi Boys” as "a full frontal assault on the Keynesian proposition that cutting spending in a weak economy produces further weakness".[18]

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.[19] [20] However, Alesina along with Francesco Giavazzi and Carlo Favero published counterarguments that suggested some austerity programmes (such as the one in Britain) had produced above-average economic growth and stronger economic performance than had been predicted by the IMF, and argued that spending cuts were a more effective way to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio than tax increases.[21]

On 23 May 2020, while hiking with his wife, Susan, Alesina died; the cause was diagnosed as a heart attack.[22] In 2021, Harvard University renamed its Seminar on Political Economy in Alesina's honor.[23]

Selected publications

Books

Articles

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External links

Notes and References

  1. News: Alberto Alesina, economist, 1957-2020 . Financial Times. 10 January 2024.
  2. Web site: Silvana Tenreyro awarded the Carl Menger Prize. 3 September 2018 . Deutsche Bundesbank. 8 March 2024.
  3. https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/alesina/files/cv_may_2020.pdf
  4. Web site: Mineo . Liz . 2020-05-27 . Recalling a pioneer of modern political economy. 2024-01-10 . Harvard Gazette . en-US.
  5. News: https://web.archive.org/web/20240110183444/https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2020/05/28/the-legacy-of-alberto-alesina. 10 January 2024. The Economist. The legacy of Alberto Alesina. 28 May 2020.
  6. Vindigni . Andrea . September 2023 . Alberto Alesina (1957-2020): Man, Researcher, Professor of Economics, Popularizer . IZA Discussion Paper Series . 16486.
  7. Web site: Tribute to Alberto Alesina (1957-2020) . Gopinath . Gita . June 2020. International Monetary Fund.
  8. News: Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Alberto Francesco Alesina, 63 . The Harvard Gazette . 8 March 2024 . 2 February 2022.
  9. News: Mineo . Liz . 27 May 2020 . Recalling a pioneer of modern political economy . 24 October 2020 . The Harvard Gazette.
  10. Web site: Program Report: Political Economy, 2023 . 2024-01-11. Trebbi. Francesco. Washington . Ebonya L . 31 March 2023. National Bureau of Economic Research . en.
  11. Web site: Memoriam . 2024-01-14 . The Econometric Society . en.
  12. Web site: Alberto Alesina. July 2023. 8 March 2024. American Academy of Arts and Sciences .
  13. Helgadóttir . Oddný . 15 March 2016 . The Bocconi boys go to Brussels: Italian economic ideas, professional networks and European austerity . Journal of European Public Policy . en . 23 . 3 . 392–409 . 10.1080/13501763.2015.1106573 . 1350-1763 . 155917559.
  14. Farrell . Henry . Quiggin . John . 2017 . Consensus, Dissensus, and Economic Ideas: Economic Crisis and the Rise and Fall of Keynesianism . International Studies Quarterly . en . 61 . 2 . 269–283 . 10.1093/isq/sqx010 . 0020-8833 . free.
  15. Book: Alesina . Alberto . Austerity: When It Works and When It Doesn't . Favero . Carlo . Giavazzi . Francesco . 2019 . Princeton University Press . 978-0-691-17221-7 . 5 . j.ctvc77f4b.
  16. Book: Carlin . Wendy . Macroeconomics:Institutions, instability, and the financial system . Soskice . David . 2014 . Oxford University Press . USA . 528–530.
  17. Alesina . Alberto F. . Ardagna . Silvia . October 2009 . Large Changes in Fiscal Policy: Taxes Versus Spending . NBER Working Paper No. 15438 . 10.1.1.362.7482 . 10.3386/w15438.
  18. Web site: How the Case for Austerity Has Crumbled . Paul . Krugman . The New York Review. 6 June 2013.
  19. Devries . Pete . Guajardo . Jaime . Leigh . Daniel . Pescatori . Andrea . 2011 . A New Action-Based Dataset of Fiscal Consolidation . IMF Working Paper . 128 . 11 . 1861798.
  20. https://www.imf.org/~/media/Websites/IMF/imported-flagship-issues/external/pubs/ft/weo/2010/02/pdf/_c3pdf.ashx Imported flagship issues
  21. Web site: Improving Economic Growth: Cut Spending or Raise Taxes? - IMF F&D Magazine . Alesina . Alberto . Favero . Carlo A . Giavazzi . Francesco. March 2018 . 2024-01-10 . IMF . en.
  22. News: È morto Alberto Alesina, economista italiano che ha conquistato Harward . la Repubblica . 24 May 2020 . it.
  23. Web site: Seminar Series: Alberto Alesina Seminar on Political Economy . 2021-11-09 . Institute for Quantitative Social Science . en.

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