GUIDO ALFANI

GUIDO ALFANI

Courses a.y. 2024/2025

Biographical note

I was born on 7 February 1976. I got my degree in Economics and Social Disciplines (DES) at Bocconi University.  Thereafter, I got a PhD in Economic and Social History.


About

I am a full professor of Economic History at Bocconi University, Milan. My areas of interest include economic history and demography, with a focus on long-term dynamics, on economic inequality and social mobility, and on the history of epidemics and pandemics.

I am also an Affiliated Scholar of the Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality (New York, U.S.); a Research Fellow of CEPR - Center for Economic Policy and Research (London, U.K.) and a Research Associate of CAGE - Centre for Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (Warwick, U.K.). At Bocconi University, I am a member of the Dondena Centre for Research on Social Dynamics and of IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research). During 2013-2019 I have served as director of the Master of Science in Economic and Social Sciences at Bocconi.

I have also held visiting positions at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris, France); the University of Glasgow (U.K.), with a grant from the Royal Society of Edinburgh; the Centre for Population Studies of the University of Umeå (Sweden); the Université Bordeaux3 (France); the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure (U.K.), with a research grant from Wellcome Trust; the Centre Roland Mousnier (Paris, France); the Nuffield College at Oxford University (U.K.); the London School of Economics (U.K.); the Trinity College in Dublin (Ireland).

 

I am currently a member of the scientific committee of the Datini Foundation, of the international advisory board of the Posthumus Institute-Research School for Economic and Social History and of the board of trustees of the European Historical Economics Society (EHES). I am an associate editor of Genus and a member of the editorial board of Explorations in Economic History and of the European Review of Economic History. During 2009-2015 I have been the chief editor of the journal Popolazione e Storia.

In 2011, I was awarded an ERC Starting Research Grant for the project EINITE-Economic Inequality across Italy and Europe, 1300-1800 (project running from 1 January 2012 to 31 December 2016) (www.dondena.unibocconi.it/EINITE).

In 2016, I was awarded an ERC Consolidator Research Grant for the project SMITE-Social Mobility and Inequality across Italy and Europe, 1300-1800 (project running from 1 June 2017 to 31 May 2022) (www.dondena.unibocconi.it/SMITE).


Research interests

Economic and social inequality; social mobility; poverty; distribution and concentration of wealth and income in Europe during the Middle Ages and the early modern period; historical demography (history of plagues and other epidemics; history of famines); economic trends in pre-industrial Italy; social alliance systems and social networks; practices of godparenthood and name-giving.


Selected Publications

Guido Alfani
As Gods Among Men. A History of the Rich in the West
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2023

Alfani, Guido; Bonetti, Marco; Fochesato, Mattia
Pandemics and socio-economic status : evidence from the plague of 1630 in Northern Italy
POPULATION STUDIES, 2023

Alfani, Guido
Epidemics, inequality and poverty in preindustrial and early industrial times
JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC LITERATURE, 2022

Alfani,guido; Gierok, Victoria; Schaff, Felix
Economic inequality in preindustrial Germany, ca. 1300–1850
THE JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY, 2022

Alfani, Guido; Montero, Hector García
Wealth inequality in pre-industrial England: a long-term view (late thirteenth to sixteenth centuries)
THE ECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEW, 2022

Guido Alfani
Economic inequality in preindustrial times: Europe and beyond
JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC LITERATURE, 2021

Alfani, Guido; Di Tullio, Matteo
The lion's share : inequality and the rise of the fiscal state in preindustrial Europe
2019

Alfani, Guido; Percoco, Marco
Plague and long-term development: the lasting effects of the 1629–30 epidemic on the Italian cities
ECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEW, 2019

Alfani, Guido; Bonetti, Marco
A survival analysis of the last great European plagues: the case of Nonantola (Northern Italy) in 1630
POPULATION STUDIES, 2019

Alfani, Guido; ó Gráda, Cormac
The timing and causes of famines in Europe
NATURE SUSTAINABILITY, 2018

Alfani, Guido; Murphy, Tommy E.
Plague and lethal epidemics in the Pre-Industrial world
THE JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY, 2017

Alfani, Guido; Ammannati, Francesco
Long-term trends in economic inequality: the case of the Florentine state, c. 1300-1800
ECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEW, 2017

Alfani, Guido; Ryckbosch, Wouter
Growing apart in early modern Europe? A comparison of inequality trends in Italy and the Low Countries, 1500-1800
EXPLORATIONS IN ECONOMIC HISTORY, 2016

Alfani, Guido
Economic inequality in Northwestern Italy: a long-term view (fourteenth to eighteenth centuries)
THE JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY, 2015