BIO
Eliana La Ferrara holds the Fondazione Romeo ed Enrica Invernizzi Chair in Development Economics at Università Bocconi in Milan, where she is also Director of Research. She received a bachelor’s degree in economics from the same institution in 1993 and a PhD in economics from Harvard University in 1999. She has held visiting positions at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Oslo and the University of Namur.
She is a fellow of the Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research (IGIER) and the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), a fellow and board member of the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD), and a member of the European Development Network (EUDN) and of the executive committee of the International Economic Association (IEA). She also co-heads the State Effectiveness Research program at the International Growth Centre (IGC) and coordinates the Policy Design and Evaluation Research (PODER) initial training network (ITN).
Her research focuses on development economics and political economy, particularly on the role of social factors in economic development. She has studied the effect of ethnic diversity on cooperation, trust and public goods provision; the role of kinship networks and inheritance practices in economic outcomes; and the effects of television on fertility preferences and marital status. She has also investigated political constraints to development, with particular focus on the causes and consequences of violent conflict. Her work has been published in the American Economic Review, Quarterly Journal of Economics, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, and the Journal of Development Economics.