Speaker

Enrico GIOVANNINI

Former Minister for Employment and Social Policies - Italy

Enrico Giovannini (born 6 June 1957) is an Italian economist and statistician, member of the Club of Rome. Since 2002 he is full professor of economic statistics at the Rome University “Tor Vergata”. From 28^th April 2013 to 22 February 2014 he was Minister of Labour and Social Policies in the Italian Government. From August 2009 to April 2013 he was President of the Italian Statistical Institute (Istat). From January 2001 to July 2009 he was Director of Statistics and Chief Statistician of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

He is currently Co-Chair (with prof. T. Atkinson) of the Statistical Advisory Board of the UNDP for the Human Development Index, Co-chair (with prof. J. E. Stiglitz) of the Strategic Forum on the measurement of well-being, joint initiative of the International Statistical Institute and of the International Economic Association, Chair of the Advisory Boards of European Projects E-Frame and Web-COSI, Member of the High-Level Expert Group on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress established by the OECD, Member of the Board of the “Agnelli Foundation”, of the “ENEL Foundation” and of the “Aurelio Peccei Foundation”, Member of the Council of the International Statistical Institute.

In 1981, he received a bachelor’s degree with honours in Economics at the University of Rome “La Sapienza”, where he defended a thesis on “Technologies and combinations of factors in developing countries.” He continued his post-graduate education at the Institute of Economic Policy at the University of Rome “La Sapienza” in the field of applied economic analysis, with a focus on the statistical/econometric analysis of the business cycle. In 1982, he joined the Italian National Institute of Statistics (Istat) as a researcher, focusing on national accounts and economic analysis. From 1989 to 1991, he was research director at the ISCO-National Institute for Studies on Economic Cycles, where he concentrated on financial/monetary economic analysis. In 1992 he returned to Istat, and in 1993 he was appointed Director of the Division of National Accounts and Economic Analysis. In 1997, he was appointed Director of the Department of Economic Statistics at Istat, serving in this position until he was appointed Chief Statistician of the OECD.

He was a consultant of the Ministry of Treasury and of the Italian Manufacturers’ Association for the development of their econometric models. During his career, he took part in several national committees, including the Council of the Interuniversity Committee for Econometrics (CIDE) and the Council of the Italian Statistical Society. He was member of the high-level Committee for the introduction of the Euro in Italy established by the Ministry of Treasury.

From January 2001 to July 2009, he was Director of Statistics and Chief Statistician of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). As Chief Statistician he designed and implemented a thorough reform of the statistical system of the organization, established the World Forum on “Statistics, Knowledge and Policy” and launched the “Global Project on the Measurement of the Progress of Societies”, which fostered the setting up of numerous worldwide initiatives on the issue “Beyond GDP”. For his work on the measurement of societal well-being, in 2010, he received the Gold Medal of the President of the Republic of Italy by the Pio Manzù International Center and became a member of the Club of Rome.

He was member of important national and international committees: Chair of the Conference of European Statisticians, a body of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), Chair of the Board of the World Bank International Comparison Programme for the measurement of purchasing power parities worldwide, member of the Board of the Canadian Index of Wellbeing and of the UK Measuring National Wellbeing Advisory Forum. Moreover, he was member of important European Committees, such as the European Statistical System Committee and the Committee of Monetary, Financial and Balance of Payments Statistics. He was member of the “Stiglitz Commission”, established by the French President Nikolas Sarkozy, Chair of the Global Council on the “Evaluation of Societal Progress” established by the World Economic Forum and advisor to the European Commissioner for the Environment.

He has authored numerous publications and articles in the field of statistics and economics, as well as four books: “Choosing the Future: Knowledge and Policy in the Time of Big Data” (in Italian), published in 2014 by Il Mulino, “Understanding economic statistics”, published in 2008 by the OECD (in English, Japanese and Chezc), “Economic Statistics” (in Italian) published in 2006 by Il Mulino, and “Public Deficit, Monetary Policy and Financial Markets”, published in 1992 by Franco Angeli. He has also edited numerous editions of Istat Statistical Annals series and other volumes published by Il Mulino, Il Sole-24 Ore and Liguori.