Research
According to the November 2025 RePEc ranking, EIEF places 4th among all economic research institutes in Italy, despite its small size, which penalizes its position. In the 10/10 RePEc ranking – which considers only the top 10 researchers in each institution and publications from the last 10 years, thereby attenuating the effect of size and focusing on research momentum – EIEF ranks 2nd in Italy (behind Bocconi) and 104th worldwide among more than 9,000 economic research centers. In the global ranking that includes all researchers, EIEF is still placed within the top 2%.
From 2008 (the year of EIEF’s creation) to April 2025, EIEF faculty members have published approximately 440 papers. About 65% of these publications appeared in the “Top” category (corresponding to the 69 journals in the top quintile of the Clarivate Analytics Article Influence Score distribution); a list of these publications is available on the Selected Publications page of the EIEF website. EIEF also publishes a working paper series to facilitate the timely dissemination of the research it produces; since 2008, more than 270 working papers have been released.
Over the years, EIEF faculty members have received significant recognition. Among the most recent, the holder of the AXA Chair and an EIEF Fellow have been elected Fellows of the Econometric Society (with only Bocconi in Italy having more such Fellows). The holder of the AXA Chair and two EIEF Fellows have, in subsequent years, been awarded the prestigious Premio De Sanctis for Economic Science. One Assistant Professor has been awarded the Young Economist Award 2025 by the European Economic Association. One EIEF’s Research Affiliate has been appointed Chief Competition Economist at the European Commission. Another Fellow currently serves as Editor of the Economic Journal. Many faculty members serve or have served as Editors or Associate Editors of prestigious international journals.
Graduate Teaching
The teaching activities at EIEF are structured around two graduate programs: a Master’s program (Rome Master in Economics, RoME) – offered together with Luiss University – and a PhD program (Rome Economics Doctorate, RED) – offered with Luiss University, Tor Vergata University and, since September 2025, the University of Rome La Sapienza.
Both programs are characterized by a high faculty-to-student ratio and an active learning approach, with early student presentations held in dedicated workshops. The placement outcomes of RoME students have been impressive to date, involving not only a few exceptional individuals but the vast majority of each cohort. Many students have been admitted to leading universities in the United States and Europe (including the University of Chicago, Princeton, Stanford, NYU, Columbia, MIT Sloan, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern, the University of Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and LSE); others have been recruited by consulting firms, international organizations, and central banks.
The RED program is currently in its fifth edition. The first cohort of students will receive their PhD degrees in June 2026; it is therefore still too early to provide concrete evidence of the program’s placement outcomes.
These initiatives represent a stepping stone toward the creation, in the medium term, of a “Rome School of Economics” – similar to those existing in London, Paris, Barcelona, Stockholm, and Toulouse – bringing together the best available resources across Roman universities and offering internationally recognized, high-level training in economics.
Capacity to attract funding
In the past, EIEF has served as the designated host institution for six faculty members awarded grants from the European Research Council (Luigi Pistaferri, Claudio Michelacci, Francesco Lippi, Francesco Decarolis, Luigi Paciello, and Barbara Biasi). Among its Fellows and Research Affiliates, four researchers are currently funded by ERC grants (Francesco Lippi, Emilio Calvano, Luigi Pascali, and Doruk Cetemen), albeit with different host institutions. Another Fellow (Giancarlo Spagnolo) has been awarded an Advanced Grant from the Italian Science Fund (the “Italian ERC”).
EIEF has also received funding from the AXA Research Fund and the Bajola Parisani Foundation. More recently, it has obtained two grants from the UniCredit Foundation (the Top-Up Foscolo Europe Fellowships and the Marco Fanno PhD Research Grant, awarded to the RED program). During the period 2023-2026, EIEF has participated in the GRINS Foundation, a consortium coordinated by the University of Bologna, which has received total funding of €116 million under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.
