Alessandro Vercelli was full Professor of Economics in the Department of Political Economy and Statistics of the University of Siena. He is Professorial Research Associate of the Department of Economics, School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London), and life member of the Clare Hall (University Cambridge). He has been a member of the Executive Committee of the Italian Economic Association, and Vice President of the International Economic Association. He obtained a Fulbright-SSRC award (1982) and was awarded the St. Vincent Prize (1988) and the Casentino Prize (2011). He has been Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Queen Mary, University of London (2005), British Council Senior Visiting Fellow at St Antony’s College, Oxford (1996), and visiting scholar in many other Academic Institutions including NYU (New York), UCLA (Los Angeles), LSE (University of London), UNAM (Mexico City), and the Universities of Bielefeld, Nice, Valencia, Campinas, Rio de Janeiro, La Plata.