Foto del docente

Roberto Scazzieri

Alma Mater Professor

Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna

Adjunct professor

Department of Economics

Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental, and Materials Engineering

Research

Keywords: Structural economic analysis Economic dynamics and structural change Political economy Political economy of the Eurozone Contexts Congruence Criteria Connections Rationality and plausible reasoning

Research interests:

Production theory. Structural change and economic dynamics. Political economy of  social structure and economic analysis of institutions. Decision making under fundamental uncertainty. History of economic analysis. Philosophy or economics and economic methodology.

Research carried out by the principal investigator and his team moves from the analytical reconstruction of social congruence criteria and from the analysis of context-dependent models of congruence and social knowledge dynamics. In particular, special attention has been devoted to the theory of connections, so as to highlight a taxonomy of connections and the variety of interdependencies compatible with any given set of connections. It may be conjectured that any given set of connections presupposes the existence of 'borderlines' (both with respect to the external environment and within the inner space of connections). Salient  schemes of interdependence  (congruence frames) are central in bringing certain connections to the fore while excluding other sets of connections. This point of view calls attention to the consideration of distance measures (both among individual subjects as among social groups). For the same individuals (or groups) appear more or less distant relatively to one another (both in terms of their relative positions and in terms of their representations of them) depending on the salient features considered. This approach suggests that socio-economic dynamics can be analyzed by considering the processes by which alternative sets of salient features may be generated. In particular, there is an important relationship between identification of salient features and emergence of congruence structures. This linkage suggests a classification of congruence criteria and the substitution of a continuum of congruence criteria for the duality between congruence and misfit (and for the duality coordination versus conflict) . It is envisaged that a general explanation of congruence structures may be derived from consideration of specific sets of salient features, and their association with ad hoc congruence criteria adapted to specific historical and institutional contexts. A case of special interest will be the emergence and dynamics of congruence and coordination under conditions of severe uncertainty, and the position of coordination images in that connection. The principal investigator presented a paper on coordination images (social mirrors) at the international conference 'The Philosophy of Adam Smith', to be held at Balliol College, Oxford, 6-8 January 2009. Two other papers in this field have been presented respectively at the University of Stirling SCEME worshop of 25.4.2009 and at the workshop 'The Theory of Moral Sentiments and the Human Sciences' held at the Bologna Academy of Sciences (11.12.2009). The structure and dynamics of causal contexts has been examined in the paper 'From Theory to Context: Pragmatism in Economics', presented at the colloquium 'Pragmatism from Giovanni Vailati to Contemporary Epistemology' (Interdepartmental Research Centre in Epistemology and the History of Science "Federigo Enriques", CIRESS, University of Bologna (13.10.2009). The above research activity has been carried out in association with the Centre for Research in Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) , University of Cambridge, UK; the Centre for History and Economics, King's College, Cambridge; Gonville and Caius College and Clare Hall, Cambridge.  More recently, collaborative research has been been carried out with the Centre for Financial History, Newnham College, Cambridge and with the Research Seminar in Political Economy, Emmanuel College, Cambridge.The methodological background of this research programme has been explored in a series of international workshops, which are listed below: 'Rationality and Patterns of Reasoning' (European Science Foundation, ESF, November 2004); ‘Causality, Probability and Rationality' (6.5.2005),organized in association with the Department of Philosophy and the Institute of Advanced Study of the University of Bologna; ‘The Economy of Relational Structures' (2.11.2005), organized in association with the Interdepartmental Research Centre on Group Analysis (CIRIG) and the Institute of Advanced Study, University of Bologna; ‘Plurality in Causality' (12 May 2005), organized in association with the Department of Philosophy and the Institute of Advanced Study, University of Bologna; 'Frames', organized in association with the Interfaculty Centre of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics and the Department of Philosophy, University of Bologna (6-9 June 2006), ‘Bruno de Finetti. Radical Probabilist', organized in association with the Department of Philosophy, the Department of Statistics, the Interdepartmental Research Centre for Epistemology and History of Science (CIRESS) and the Institute of Advanced Study, University of Bologna (27/28 October 2006), 'The Theory of Moral Sentiments and the Human Sciences' (co-convenors: R. Scazzieri and S. Zamagni; Bologna Academy of Sciences, 11.12.2009), 'Epistemological Aspects of Economic Science' (Seminar series convened by M.C. Galavotti and R. Scazzieri and organized in collaboration between the Economics Department and the Interdepartmental Research Centre in Epistemology and the History of Science "Federigo Enriques", University of Bologna (2009-2010).Roberto Scazzieri has published  (in collaboration with  Silva Marzetti dall'Aste Brandolini) the volume R. Scazzieri and S. Marzetti Dall'Aste Brandolini (eds.), Fundamental Uncertainty. Rationality and Plausible Reasoning, Basingstoke and New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.