Dr. Nicola Fontana

Nicola Fontana is an Assistant Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics at Trinity College Dublin. He is an associate of the Centre for Economics, Policy and History, of the Trinity Impact Evaluation Unit and of Trinity Research in Social Sciences. He is also an associate at the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics. His research interests centre on Political Economy, Economic History, Labour Economics and Urban Economics. Nicola obtained his PhD in Economics in 2021 from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He holds a Master of Science in Economics and Social Science (ESS) from Bocconi University and Master in Economics: Research Focus from the Université Catholique de Louvain (Joint Degree Program). He has published in the American Economic Review: Insights and Journal of Comparative Economics and has attended many international conferences.

  Applied Microeconomics   ECONOMIC HISTORY   ECONOMICS   Labor Economics   Political Economics/Economy   Urban Economics

My main research interest is political economy. Two years after obtaining my Ph.D. I have published two articles in this topic that centre on understanding how political views, cultural values and institutions interact and are formed over time. Understanding how one influences others is a challenging and fascinating area of research. In one project published in the American Economic Review: Insights, we show how antitrust institutions impact competition and innovation providing, for the first time, comprehensive measures of competition and antitrust by sector with a global coverage. Moreover, I develop various research projects, combining the political economy literature with: The economic history literature. I am focusing on critical junctures as dictatorships, massive migrations or wars and their impact on short-, medium- and long-term transformations. My latest publication in the Journal of Comparative Economics (2023), a prominent international peer-reviewed journal, speaks to this literature by looking at the role of the Italian Civil War and on the formation of political views. The urban literature: the role of cities is in continuous evolution, and it is crucial to understand how cities and citizens will adapt to the various forces over the next years. I am aiming to contribute to the debate by looking at the political economy aspect behind the housing market crisis we are observing around the world in many cities as well as the interaction between new platforms and technologies (e.g., house sharing, etc) on urban planning, social interactions, and local labour markets. Currently, two of my papers are in preparation for submission and various other projects are at different stages of completion with three entering in the final stage of writing. This research pipeline will allow me to significantly extend my track record of publications over the coming years.