MICHELE DE BENEDICTIS
(1927-2016)
Honorary President, Manlio Rossi-Doria Centre for Economic and Social Research
MICHELE DE BENEDICTIS
In 1989 Michele De Benedictis was the first agricultural economist to be elected Fellow of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, the most prestigious Italian Scientific Academy. In 1996 he was among the founders of the Associazione per Studi e Ricerche Manlio Rossi-Doria of which he has been President throughout its life. In more recent years he was awarded Lifetime Membership by the International Association of Agricultural Economists. He was emeritus member of the European Association of Agricultural Economists and by the Italian Association of Agricultural and Applied Economics.
His research interests concentrated in two main areas:
– theoretical issues and quantitative methods applied to production economics: his work was instrumental in accelerating the “modernization” of agricultural economics research in Italy in the area;
– agricultural production and structural adjustment in Agriculture in Southern Italy, with particular emphasis on issues linked to efficiency and equity.
In 1979 Michele De Benedictis published – with Vincenzo Cosentino – Economia dell’Azienda Agraria, a production economics textbook that made profound innovations in the traditional teaching of farm management in Italy and that represents the major output of his research efforts during this period.
Later on his research interests moved toward agricultural policy, with specific attention to the problems of the Common Agricultural Policy, international economics and international trade and, more recently, neo-institutional economics and its potential implications for agricultural economics research.
Throughout is prolific career Michele De Benedictis wrote more than 150 scientific papers in Italian, English, French and Spanish.
Biography of Michele De Benedictis (Italian).
Il percorso biografico di Michele De Benedictis, by Anna Carbone and Roberto Henke.
In: Michele De Benedictis: scritti scelti 1964-2008, edited by Anna Carbone, Fabrizio De Filippis and Roberto Henke, edizioni l’ancora del mediterraneo, 2009
VICE-DIRECTOR
Department for Innovation in Biological Systems, Food and Forestry (DIBAF), University of Tuscia
Department of Geography and Environment, London School of Economics
RICCARDO CRESCENZI
Riccardo Crescenzi is an Associate Professor of Economic Geography at the London School of Economics and Visiting Scholar at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is also affiliated with the Department of Economics, Roma Tre University and the Spatial Economics Research Centre at the LSE. Riccardo is current holder of a European Research Council Grant.
He was a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute (Florence) and a Visiting Scholar at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). Riccardo was also the Director of the MSc in Local Economic Development at the LSE.
Past research and academic awards include the Royal Geographical Society Best Dissertation Prize, the Italian Regional Science Association Prize G.Leonardi for the best PhD Dissertation and the joint Italian National Accademia dei Lincei & British Academy for the Humanities and the Social Sciences research fellowship and the LSE Prize for outstanding teaching performance.
He is currently co-Principal Investigator in an ESRC project and was Principal Investigator or co-PI in one ESPON Project and two EU-funded FP7 Research Projects.
Riccardo has provided advice to, amongst others, the European Investment Bank, the European Parliament and the European Commission (DG Regional Policy).
He is member of the Editorial Board of Papers in Regional Science and the Journal of Regional Science and Associate Editor of ‘Regional Studies, Regional Science’.
His research is focused on regional economic development and growth, innovation, regional policy, comparative territorial analysis of Developed and Emerging Countries and on the location decisions of Multinational Firms and their local impacts.
Department of Economics, Roma Tre University
PASQUALE DE MURO
Pasquale De Muro is Professor of Human Development Economics at the Department of Economics of Roma Tre University.
He got his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics and Policy from University of Naples “Federico II”.
He has founded and co-ordinated the Master in Human Development and Food Security of Roma Tre University.
He has collaborated with international organisations (FAO, IFAD, World Bank) and has been lecturer at the University of Glasgow, University of Ougadougou, and University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
His current research interests and publications concern the theories and policies of human and economic development, the capability approach, poverty and well-being analysis, hunger and food security, rural development, and Sub-Saharan Africa