Mirco Tonin
Mirco Tonin is Director of the Institute for the Evaluation of Public Policies and Full Professor of Economic Policy at the Faculty of Economics and Management of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano in Italy.
He received a Ph. D. in Economics from Stockholm University in 2007 and a degree in Economics from Bocconi University in Milan. He is also Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor in Bonn, at CESifo in Munich, as well as at the Dondena Centre for Research on Social Dynamics and Public Policy of Bocconi University. He currently serves on the board of the Association for the Study of Generosity in Economics, as well as in the scientific journals International Tax and Public Finance and PLOS ONE.
Mirco Tonin has started his academic career at the University of Southampton, UK, where he became Full Professor in 2015, and has spent four years at the Central European University in Budapest as UniCredit Foscolo Europe Fellow. In Bolzano, he served as Vice Dean for Research, Director of the Master in Public Policies and Administration, and Cluster Leader of the Quantitative Methods and Economic Modelling group. He also worked as a consultant for the World Bank and the International Labour Office on topics related to the whitening of the black economy and to employment protection legislation indexes. Before his doctoral studies, he worked as a financial analyst covering the currencies of Central and Eastern Europe.
His research focuses on labour, public, and behavioural economics, addressing issues that are scientifically important, but also have a wider impact. He uses a variety of methodological approaches, ranging from the design of experiments, both in the laboratory and in the field, to the analysis of administrative and survey data. Mirco Tonin has conducted research on a extensive range of issues, including education, charitable giving, racial discrimination, car accidents, labour market regulation, as well as environmental issues. In recent years, he has worked on several aspects related to the COVID-19 pandemic, like the behavioural determinants of compliance and the effectiveness of testing.
He contributes to the public debate by writing for Corriere dell’Alto Adige, Corriere del Trentino, lavoce.info and Il Sole 24 Ore. He also regularly comments on social and economic issues for TV, radio, and newspapers. His research has attracted considerable media attention, being discussed in many international outlets, including The New York Times, Financial Times, Washington Post, The Times, BBC, Guardian, and many others.
Mirco Tonin has lectured on economic policy, economics of public services, applied econometrics and microeconomics at the bachelor, master and doctoral level. He also regularly delivers lectures addressed to a wider public on topics like sustainability or nudging.
Spotlight's articles
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November 29, 2023Gender-based violence: data, culture, contrastThe interview of FBK Magazine to the FBK-IRVAPP director on the hot topic of gender-based violence from the perspective of public policies. -
May 30, 2023Evaluation in the service of public policiesInterview with FBK-IRVAPP director Mirco Tonin -
March 28, 2023Environmental sustainability and social sustainability in the water shortage emergencyWe interviewed the FBK-IRVAPP director Mirco Tonin about the dramatic water crisis that is facing our country and asked him about the role of public policies evaluation in this regard. -
November 7, 2022Mass screening is effective in containing Covid-19 infections. Published by the journal Scientific Reports The Study on the South Tyrol caseA research recently published in the prestigious scientific journal Scientific Reports shows that screening campaigns with rapid antigen tests to detect asymptomatic positives in the population are useful. Coordinated by FBK-Irvapp Director Mirco Tonin, together with fellow professors at the University of Bolzano, Davide Ferrari and Steven Stillman, the study, carried out using the data from the experiment conducted in South Tyrol in November 2020, indicates a significant lowering of infections (-45% in the infection growth rate) in the following weeks. -
May 10, 2022In-work poverty in Italy: what it is and how to combat itBeginning with a discussion of the mechanisms that lead to situations of in-work poverty, Andrea Garnero, host of the FBK-IRVAPP research center, presented data on the extent and characteristics of the phenomenon in Italy and the five proposals developed for the Ministry of Labor to counter both the spread of low wages and the growth of poverty in households -
March 10, 2022Interview with Mirco Tonin, FBK IRVAPP’s new DirectorStrengthening the culture of public policy evaluation is important. Only by paying attention to mistakes we can learn and also aim to improve our ability to understand reality in order to have a greater impact on society