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Alberto Alesina had received his PhD from Harvard in 1986. I was 19, a freshman in Bocconi’s program in Economic and Social Sciences. 1/10
It was a small program—140 freshmen, there was a strong sense of identity. On one of the first days, one of the senior faculty members, the economic history professor, gave us a “motivational speech.” It was the first time I heard the name Alberto Alesina. 2/10
We were told about Alberto’s PhD at Harvard, that he was at the start of his soon-to-be stellar career, and about other graduates who had just begun or were on the way to completing PhD’s at famous institutions. 3/10
I was a wide-eyed kid. I had never been to the States. Until that moment, my only American dream had been that, some day, I would ride a motorcycle to the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley, and all those amazing places I had seen in movies. 4/10
I remember thinking how cool it could be to walk the path that Alberto and those others had taken… graduate and then enroll in one of those programs at a famous university, become an economist. 5/10
I met Alberto for the first time in 1993. He had just become a tenured Professor at Harvard. I met him at the Abbazia di Mirasole, the amazing first home of IGIER, the Institute that Francesco Giavazzi had founded. 6/10
I remember asking him how it felt to accomplish something like that—becoming a tenured Professor at Harvard. I was still a wide-eyed kid, in awe of one of the scholars who had been my inspiration from the start, whose work I had been reading avidly. 7/10
Eventually, my career brought me to Boston College. Alberto was central to the community of Italian economists in Boston. I remember a birthday party at his home, for which Fabio Schiantarelli and I had written a “poem” for him. So much laughter. 8/10
I cannot fathom the loss felt by those who were truly close to him. But I know we all lost an amazing economist, a mentor, an inspiration, a warm, kind person. It hurts. 9/10
He loved the Monte Bianco area. This picture, taken from Punta Helbronner in 1986, has been my desktop image for as long as I can remember.
RIP Alberto. May your soul be forever happy among those peaks. 10/10
RIP Alberto. May your soul be forever happy among those peaks. 10/10
