Guido Alfani

Guido Alfani is Professor of Economic History at Bocconi University, Milan (Italy). He is also an Affiliated Scholar at the Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality (New York), a Research Associate at the CAGE Research Centre (Warwick) and a Research Fellow of the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR, London). An economic and social historian and a historical demographer, he published extensively on Italy and Europe (and beyond), specialising in economic inequality and social mobility, in the history of epidemics and famines, in social alliance systems and social networks. His most recent book, As Gods among Men. A History of the Rich in the West, has been published in December 2023 by Princeton University Press. The book is an ambitious attempt at providing a general history of the rich and the super-rich, and of how they obtained their wealth, from Antiquity until today. Alfani's previous book, The Lion’s Share. Inequality and the Rise of the Fiscal State in Preindustrial Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2019), co-authored with Matteo Di Tullio, explores how preindustrial fiscal systems favoured a continuous increase in economic inequality, because they were designed by the elites, for the advantage of the elites. Follow Guido Alfani on Twitter, @guido_alfani