About

I am a PhD candidate from UCLouvain (IRES/LIDAM) and KU Leuven (Research Unit of Early Modern History).

Currently, I am developing an interdisciplinary project bridging economics, history and digital humanities funded by a Global Fellowship between KU Leuven and UCLouvain, titled "Bridging Data Science and Intellectual History: Computing the Nodes and Edges in the Old University of Louvain (1425-1797)". The project aims at providing a data-driven answer to the question of how academic networks were configured around the Old University of Louvain, a crucial hub for the transfer of knowledge in late medieval and early modern Europe. You can browse an early version of Louvain scholars’ network here.

You can find my full CV here.

Research

My research interest include: economic history, digital humanities, economics of crime, and economics of religion.

Works in Progress

• How important were premodern universities and academies in the spread of new ideas? (with David de la Croix and Chiara Zanardello)
• Integrating library and prosopographical data in the publication network of the Old University of Louvain (with Margherita Fantoli)
• Empirical evidence on the impact of the Catholic Church on political participation in Italy

Publications

• Mafia doesn't live here anymore: Antimafia policies and housing prices, Journal of Regional Science, 63, 1001–1025, 2023 (with Francesca Calamunci, Livio Ferrante and Gianpiero Torrisi)
• Closed for Mafia: Evidence from the removal of mafia firms on commercial property values, Journal of Regional Science, 62, 1487–1511, 2022 (with Francesca Calamunci and Livio Ferrante)