PhD Thesis
Title: Essays on Public Investment and Economic Development in Postwar Italy
PhD Supervisor: Rui Esteves, Nathan Sussman
PhD Completion Date: 2025
Profile
My research examines how public investment shapes long-run economic outcomes, with a focus on postwar Italy. I use newly digitized historical data—municipal censuses, firm-level balance sheets, and reconstructed transport networks—to study how state-led development programs and infrastructure expansion influenced firm growth, regional development, and labor markets. More broadly, I am interested in the economic history of public investment and development policy, and in computational methods for recovering, harmonizing, and analyzing historical data at scale.
I am completing my PhD at the Geneva Graduate Institute, funded by a Swiss National Science Foundation Doc.CH grant. My dissertation includes two studies on the impact of development banking in Southern Italy and one on national highway expansion. I hold a BA from McGill University and an MA from the Graduate Institute.
Find more on my website: michelezampa.onrender.com.
Research Interests
- Financial Architecture
- Banking History
- Government Finance
- Development Economics
- Italian Economic History
Fellowships, Grants and Awards
- SNSF: Doc.CH Scholarship (2021-2025) funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation
- Foundation Pierre Du Bois Doctoral Workshop Grant
- The Graduate Institute Excellence Scholarship