Pier Giorgio Ardeni

He graduates in Agricultural Sciences in Bologna in October 1985 with 110 cum laude and a research thesis on an econometric model of international trade in raw materials, commodities and agricultural products. In 1986, he is admitted to the University of California Berkeley, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics. Gradually, his interests extend from agricultural economics to macroeconomics, applied econometrics and development economics. While at Berkeley, he works as a research assistant with George Akerlof, Gordon Rausser, Andrew Rose and Brian Wright. In May 1988 he completes the Master in Statistics at the Department of Statistics, while in Dec. 1989 he obtains his Ph.D. defending a thesis on the interrelationships between money, exchange rates and commodity prices.

In 1988 he win a competition for a Researcher position in Statistics at the University of Urbino, Faculty of Economics, where he takes service on April 1, 1989. In 1992 he win the national competition for an Associate Professorship in Political Economy (with a commission headed by prof. Paolo Sylos Labini) and is hired by the University of Bologna, Department of Statistics, at the chair of Theory and policy of economic development. In 1999 he win the national competition for a full professorship in Development Economics (with a commission headed by prof. Franco Volpi), and in 2000 he is named as Full Professor of Political Economy and Development Economics at the Faculty of Statistical Sciences and Department of Economic Sciences of the University of Bologna (current). 

Over the years, he teaches several different courses. In Urbino, he gives lectures on statistics. In Bologna, he first teaches Economic development theory and policy (1992-1995), then Economics (1994-2000), and Financial Eonomics (1994-1995) and finally Development Economics (1999-current). Since the establishment of Master Degree he then teaches the advanced course in Development Economics (2005-current). In 2002 and again in 2005-2006 he is director of the Master in Development and International Cooperation of the University of Bologna, in which he teaches two courses in Development Economics I and II. In the last few years, he has also contributed to organizing a summer school on monitoring and evaluation of international development programmes at the University of Bologna.

He is the president of the Centre for International Development, a not-for-profit association. He has also been the President of the Foundation - Research Institute "Carlo Cattaneo", a private institute devoted to social, economic and political research, over the 2015-2019 period.

Over the years, his activism on the field in various countries and various national and international organizations becomes ever more intense. In 1994-95 he is in Ethiopia (on leave from the University of Bologna), under a program for cooperation and capacity building with the University of Addis Ababa, Department of Economics. In 1995-96, he is working on an EU-TACIS program of capacity building with the Ministry of Economy dell'Ukbekistan. Between 1996 and 1999 he is in Mozambique (on leave from the University of Bologna) for a technical assistance program at the Institute of National Statistics and the Ministry of Finance and Planning. Later he works on the program of capacity building of the Department of Economics dell'Unversidade Eduardo Mondlane in Maputo. He also works with ILO / UNDP on a field research on poverty and women. In 1998 he goes to Armenia in a couple of technical assistance missions to the Ministry of Economy (EU-TACIS). In 1998 he also begins collaborating with Eurostat, within the assistance program for the conversion and harmonization of national accounts of the candidate countries to join the EU. Thus, over the following years he repeatedly goes to Bulgaria, Cyprus and Turkey. In 2000 he is in Ukraine for a brief assessment mission to an EU-TACIS assistance program at the center of economic and legal studies. From 2000 he is engaged in a two-year (EC-PHARE)technical assistance program to the State Agency of Statistics of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where he continues to collaborate on various projects of the European Commission in subsequent years. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, he then works with OXFAM (2003) and the World Bank (2005).

In 2003-2004 he works in the initiative for the evaluation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) launched by the World Bank, UNDP, DFID and European Commission, with missions to Cambodia and Yemen. Between 2006 and 2008 he is again engaged in Bosnia and Herzegovina on a program funded by DFID to assist the National Development Plan and poverty reduction. He coordinate the review of the PRSP and the NationalHouseholdBudget Survey. In 2009-2010, he is on leave from the University of Bologna and goes to the State University of New York in Albany, New York, where he works on a research project on monitoring and evaluation and indicators of development. In 2009 he also works on the  analysis on data on poverty survey on living standards carried out in Afghanistan, where he goes on a mission to Kabul. In May 2009, he is in Kazakhstan, Astana, in an EC-TACIS program of capacity building of the Central Institute of Statistics on national accounts, while between September and December 2009 he is in Sierra Leone, for an assessment mission and funded by DFID of the conditions of the National Bureau of Statistics and the data on poverty. In 2010 he is among the experts who prepare the study on the contribution of the European Commission of the European Union to achieve the MDGs at the World Summit at the United Nations decade of September 22, 2010. He has been in Sierra Leone for the poverty reduction strategy in 2013, then again in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2014 and 2015 and in Pakistan for a project on subsidies fo women in poverty.

Over the years, Pier Giorgio Ardeni has worked on various research topics, from the analysis of international terms of trade and commodity prices to monetary and realmacroeconomic analysis, with applied studies on cointegration, exchange rates, on prices and interest rates. He has then worked on broad economic growth, development patterns, history of economic development, international migrations, poverty and distribution. Over the years, has produced a number of articles published in various journals, from the American Journal of Agricultural Economics to Economic Letters, from The Economic Journal to the European Economic Review to the European Review of Economic History, from the Giornale degli Economisti ed Annali di Economia alla Rivista Internazionale di Scienze Sociali. He has published books on Credit Rationing (with Marcello Messori, Laterza, Bari, 1994), Endogenous Growth Theory (Giappichelli, Torino, 1995), and Elementary Economics (Aesculapius, Bologna, 1998), as well as numerous contributions to collective volumes.

Pier Giorgio Ardenihas an extensive experience with poverty assessments and poverty statistics in various countries, as well as with nation-wide household surveys.Hehas 20 years of experience as advisor/consultant in developing and transition countries in statistical development and capacity building projects, household surveys, PRSPs and MDG indicator monitoring and evaluation, policy advice. He has been an advisor for the World Bank, for important NGOs like OXFAM, for the Department for International Development (DFID)of the UK Government, for the International Development Cooperationof the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for several development assistance programmes funded by the European Commission, Eurostat, and Istat, in several countries like: Afghanistan, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Cyprus, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, Mali, Mexico, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Turkey, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Yemen. He has also being working as an economic advisor for the European Commission Delegation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is presently President of the Centre for International Development (CID), based in Bologna.