Guido Tabellini Is Europe Ready for More Political Integration?

Guido Tabellini is a Professor of Economics (Intesa Sanpaolo Chair in Political Economics) at Bocconi University, Milan where he was Rector between 2008 and 2012. Having previously held positions at the Universities of Cagliari and Brescia in Italy and Stanford and UCLA in the United States, Tabellini’s main areas of research include monetary economics, public economics, and political economics. Sitting on several prestigious company boards and scientific committees, Tabellini has provided consultancy expertise to the Italian Treasury and to the World Bank. In 2016, Professor Tabellini was the first Italian scholar to receive the Foreign Honorary Members Award of the American Economic Association (AEA).

Area of Research

Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics, Public Economics, International Economics, Political Economics

since 1994

Professor of Economics

Bocconi University (Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi)

2008-2012

Rector

Bocconi University (Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi)

1994-2008

Director/President

Bocconi University (Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi)

Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research (IGIER)

1991-1994

Professor of Economics

Università degli Studi di Brescia

1990-1991

Professor of Economics

University of Cagliari (Università di Cagliari)

1986-1990

Assistant and Associate Professor of Economics

University of California, Los Angeles

1985-1986

Assistant Professor of Economics

Stanford University

1984

Ph.D. in Economics

University of California, Los Angeles

1980

Laurea in Economia

University of Turin (Università degli Studi di Torino)

- German Economic Review (since 1999)

- Journal of the European Economic Association (2003-2008)

- International Tax and Public Finance (1998-2001)

- Journal of Public Economics (1998-2001)

- European Economic Review (1992-1961)

- Foreign Honorary Member of the American Economic Association (2016)

- Member, Academia Europaea (2012)

- Foreign Honorary Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2003)

Prizes

- Hicks-Tinbergen Award, European Economic Association (2012)

- Guido Carli Award, Associazione Guido e Maria Carli (2011)

- Tjalling Koopmans Award, by Efact (2008)

- Y. Jahnsson Award, European Economic Association (2001)

Fellowships

- Research Fellow, Canadian Institute of Economic Research (2003)

- International Research Fellow, Kiel Institute for World Econ. Studies (2001)

- Fellow of the Econometric Society (2001)

- Distinguished Fellow, CES, University of Munich (1999)

- Research Fellow, CEPR (since 1987)

- Faculty Research Fellow, NBER (1987-1992)

- Political Economy Fellowship, Carnegie-Mellon University (1987-1988))

Despite an upsurge in nationalist rhetoric, EU citizens still support European level decision making in several policy areas. For a political union to be effective, however, similarity in policy preferences is necessary. In this video, GUIDO TABELLINI considers whether citizens of different EU states are sufficiently similar in their views of the world to make further political integration feasible. Analyzing survey data on areas including values and civic capital, religiosity and the role of the state, Tabellini finds that despite heterogeneity between EU citizens increasing over time, Europeans are still not very different from one another. Nevertheless, with European identity remaining much weaker than national identities, Tabellini identifies a number of measures that could help to underpin further political integration going forward.

LT Video Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.21036/LTPUB10678

Is Europe an Optimal Political Area?

  • Alberto Alesina, Guido Tabellini and Francesco Trebbi
  • Brookings Papers on Economic Activity
  • Published in 2017
Alberto Alesina, Guido Tabellini and Francesco Trebbi. "Is Europe an Optimal Political Area?" Brookings Papers on Economic Activity 1 (2017): 169-234.