Alberto Alesina (1957–2020)

Alberto Alesina was the Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University, from where he got his PhD, taught for more than three decades and where he also served as chairman of the Department of Economics from 2003 to 2006. Alberto was a member of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and the director of the NBER Political Economy Program, which he created in 2006. He was a co-editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics, an associate editor of many academic journals and was an active columnist in leading newspapers around the world. His research interests included political economy, fiscal austerity, preferences for redistribution, ethnic diversity and the economics of culture.