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The Most Famous

ECONOMISTS from Italy

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This page contains a list of the greatest Italian Economists. The pantheon dataset contains 315 Economists, 7 of which were born in Italy. This makes Italy the birth place of the 8th most number of Economists behind Poland and Canada.

Top 7

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Italian Economists of all time. This list of famous Italian Economists is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

Photo of Mario Draghi

1. Mario Draghi (1947 - )

With an HPI of 70.28, Mario Draghi is the most famous Italian Economist.  His biography has been translated into 73 different languages on wikipedia.

Mario Draghi (Italian: [ˈmaːrjo ˈdraːɡi]; born 3 September 1947) is an Italian economist, academic, banker, and civil servant who served as the prime minister of Italy from February 2021 to October 2022. Prior to his appointment as prime minister, he served as President of the European Central Bank (ECB) between 2011 and 2019. Draghi was also Chair of the Financial Stability Board between 2009 and 2011, and Governor of the Bank of Italy between 2006 and 2011.After a lengthy career as an academic economist in Italy, Draghi worked for the World Bank in Washington, D.C., throughout the 1980s, and in 1991 returned to Rome to become Director General of the Italian Treasury. He left that role after a decade to join Goldman Sachs, where he remained until his appointment as Governor of the Bank of Italy in 2006. His tenure as Governor coincided with the 2008 Great Recession, and in the midst of this he was selected to become the first Chair of the Financial Stability Board, the global standard-setter that replaced the Financial Stability Forum. He left those roles after his nomination by the European Council in 2011 to serve as President of the ECB. He presided over the institution during the Eurozone crisis, becoming famous throughout Europe for saying that he would be prepared to do "whatever it takes" to prevent the euro from failing. In 2014, Draghi was listed by Forbes as the eighth-most powerful person in the world. In 2015, Fortune magazine ranked him as the world's "second greatest leader". He is also the only Italian to be listed three times in the Time 100 annual listicle. In 2019, Paul Krugman described him as "the greatest central banker of modern times." Moreover, thanks to his monetary policies, he is widely considered the "saviour of the euro" during the European debt crisis. He has been nicknamed Super Mario by some media, a nickname that was popularised during his time as President of the ECB, when he was credited by numerous sources as having played a key role in combatting the Eurozone crisis.After Draghi's term as ECB President ended in 2019, he initially returned to private life. On 3 February 2021, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy, Draghi was invited by President Sergio Mattarella to form a government of national unity (Draghi Cabinet), following the resignation of Giuseppe Conte. After successful negotiations with parties including the League (Lega), the Five Star Movement (M5S), the Democratic Party (PD), and Forza Italia (FI), Draghi was sworn in as prime minister on 11 February, pledging to oversee effective implementation of COVID-19 economic stimulus. Draghi has been rated highly in public opinion polls in Italy during his time as prime minister; at the end of his first year in office Politico Europe ranked him as the most powerful person in Europe and The Economist named Italy as "Country of the Year", singling out Draghi's leadership as central to its nomination.On 14 July 2022, the M5S revoked support to Draghi's coalition government regarding a decree concerning economic stimulus to offset the energy crisis. On the same day, despite having largely won the confidence vote, Draghi announced his resignation as prime minister, which was rejected by President Mattarella. On 21 July, Draghi resigned for a second time following the failure of the confidence vote to pass with an absolute majority due to the withdrawals of M5S, Lega, and FI. On the same day, President Mattarella accepted the resignation and Draghi remained in office as caretaker prime minister. He was succeeded by Giorgia Meloni on 22 October 2022.

Photo of Franco Modigliani

2. Franco Modigliani (1918 - 2003)

With an HPI of 63.76, Franco Modigliani is the 2nd most famous Italian Economist.  His biography has been translated into 53 different languages.

Franco Modigliani (18 June 1918 – 25 September 2003) was an Italian-American economist and the recipient of the 1985 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics. He was a professor at University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Carnegie Mellon University, and MIT Sloan School of Management.

Photo of Piero Sraffa

3. Piero Sraffa (1898 - 1983)

With an HPI of 55.74, Piero Sraffa is the 3rd most famous Italian Economist.  His biography has been translated into 23 different languages.

Piero Sraffa, FBA (5 August 1898 – 3 September 1983) was an influential Italian economist who served as lecturer of economics at the University of Cambridge. His book Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities is taken as founding the neo-Ricardian school of economics.

Photo of Giovanni Arrighi

4. Giovanni Arrighi (1937 - 2009)

With an HPI of 51.58, Giovanni Arrighi is the 4th most famous Italian Economist.  His biography has been translated into 19 different languages.

Giovanni Arrighi (7 July 1937 – 18 June 2009) was an Italian economist, sociologist and world-systems analyst, from 1998 a Professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University. His work has been translated into over fifteen languages.

Photo of Pier Carlo Padoan

5. Pier Carlo Padoan (1950 - )

With an HPI of 42.52, Pier Carlo Padoan is the 5th most famous Italian Economist.  His biography has been translated into 18 different languages.

Pier Carlo Padoan (Italian: [ˈpjɛr ˈkarlo padoˈan, - ˈpaːdoan]; born 19 January 1950) is an Italian economist who served as Minister of Economy and Finance of Italy from 2014 to 2018. Padoan was director of the International Monetary Fund for Italy from 2001 to 2005. On 1 June 2007, he became Deputy Secretary General of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Photo of Alberto Alesina

6. Alberto Alesina (1957 - 2020)

With an HPI of 39.15, Alberto Alesina is the 6th most famous Italian Economist.  His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.

Alberto Francesco Alesina (29 April 1957 – 23 May 2020) was an Italian economist who served as the Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University from 2003 until his death in 2020. 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. 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.

Photo of Daniele Archibugi

7. Daniele Archibugi (1958 - )

With an HPI of 38.46, Daniele Archibugi is the 7th most famous Italian Economist.  His biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

Daniele Archibugi (born 17 July 1958 in Rome, Italy) is an Italian economic and political theorist. He works on the economics and policy of innovation and technological change, on the political theory of international relations and on political and technological globalisation.

Pantheon has 7 people classified as economists born between 1898 and 1958. Of these 7, 3 (42.86%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living economists include Mario Draghi, Pier Carlo Padoan, and Daniele Archibugi. The most famous deceased economists include Franco Modigliani, Piero Sraffa, and Giovanni Arrighi. As of April 2022, 1 new economists have been added to Pantheon including Alberto Alesina.

Living Economists

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Deceased Economists

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Newly Added Economists (2022)

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Which Economists were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 4 most globally memorable Economists since 1700.