Guido Alfani

Guido Alfani is Professor of Economic History at Bocconi University where he is also a Fellow of Dondena Centre and of IGIER. He is an Affiliated Scholar at the Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality (New York) and at the Stone Center on Wealth Inequality and Social Mobility (Chicago), a Research Associate at the CAGE Research Centre (Warwick) and a Research Fellow of CEPR. He serves on the editorial boards of the European Review of Economic History and of Genus. An economic and social historian and an historical demographer, he published extensively on preindustrial Italy and Europe, specialising in economic inequality and social mobility, in the history of epidemics and famines, in social alliance systems and social networks. In 2012-2016 he was Principal Investigator of the ERC-funded research project EINITE-Economic Inequality across Italy and Europe, 1300-1800 (www.dondena.unibocconi.it/EINITE), whose aim was to reconstruct long-term trends in wealth and income inequality in different areas of the continent. In 2017-2022 he was P.I. of another ERC-funded project, SMITE-Social Mobility and Inequality across Italy and Europe, 1300-1800 (www.dondena.unibocconi.it/SMITE). His recent publications include As Gods Among Men. A History of the Rich in the West, PUP 2024; Epidemics, Inequality and Poverty in Preindustrial and Early Industrial Times, Journal of Economic Literature, 60(1), 2022; Economic Inequality in Preindustrial times: Europe and beyond, Journal of Economic Literature, 59(1), 2021; The Lion's Share. Inequality and the Rise of the Fiscal State in Preindustrial Europe, CUP 2019 (with M. Di Tullio); Famine in European History, CUP 2017 (with C. Ó Gráda); Plague and Lethal Epidemics in the Pre-Industrial World, Journal of Economic History, 77(1), 2017 (with T. Murphy).