The Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna is a public university institute – with special autonomy – working in the field of applied sciences: Economics and Management, Law Sciences, Political Sciences, Agricultural Sciences and Biotechnology, Medical Sciences, and Industrial and Information Engineering. Sant’Anna aims at experimenting innovative paths in research and education. Professors and researchers live and interact with the students, enjoying a continuous cultural and intellectual exchange. Due to its international nature, education of excellence and scientific community, SSSA established itself as a reference both in Italy and abroad.
In this context, the Institute of Economics, carries out research and training activities in the field of empirical and theoretical economics. Our main lines of research include: (i) the economics of innovation studying how innovations are generated and their impact at the micro, meso and macro levels; (ii) the empirics and theory of industrial dynamics, with emphasis on the relation between firm financial profiles and industrial performance; (iii) micro and macro agent-based models, with particular attention to both the real side of the economy and banking/financial sectors; (iv) empirical network analysis of micro and macroeconomic networks, especially finance, trade, foreign direct investment, migration and mobility;
The Institute of Economics welcomes and favours dialogue between empirical investigations, theoretical developments and normative contributions – concerning both corporate management and public policies – offering an interdisciplinary environment in which different research interests and competencies, ranging from Economics, to Information Sciences, Mathematics and Physics meet and can be fruitfully integrated. Due to the participation to various national and international research projects, its researchers are well nested in an international network. Despite its very small size, the Institute has achieved important results in terms of research output, that place it at the second place within the Economics Departments in Italy according to the report on research recently published by the Italian Agency for Research Evaluation (ANVUR), and near the top of European rankings of economic institutions (cf. the RePEc rankings).