Enrico Giovannini

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 University of Rome Tor Vergata. He is Senior Fellow of the LUISS "School of European Political Economy", member of the “Commission Economique de la Nation” of the French Government, and co-chair of the "Independent Expert Advisory Group on the Data Revolution for Sustainable Development" established by the Secretary-General of the United Nations. He is also chair and member of several boards of Italian and international organisations. From April 2013 to 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).

Biography

In 1981, he received a bachelor's degree with honours in Economics and Commerce at the Sapienza University of Rome, 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 at 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 and international 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 Chief Statistician and Director of the Statistics Directorate of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris. As Chief Statistician he designed and implemented a thorough reform of the statistical system of the organization and launched the Global Project on the Measurement of Progress in Societies, which fostered the setting up of numerous worldwide initiatives on the issue "Beyond GDP". He also established the World Forum on Statistics, Knowledge and Politics, organising the first editions of the Forum, held in Italy (2004), Turkey (2007) and South Korea (2009). In particular, at the end of the 2007 Forum the "Istanbul Declaration" on "Beyond GDP" was signed by the OECD, the European Commission, the United Nations, the United Nations Development Programme, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, the World Bank and several other institutions.

He was member of important international bodies: 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 Program for the measurement of purchasing power parities worldwide, advisor to the European Commissioner for the Environment and member of the Board of the Canadian Index of Wellbeing and of the UK Measuring National Wellbeing Advisory Forum. He has also been a member of the "Stiglitz Commission", established by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Chair of the Global Council on "Benchmarking of Societal Progress" established by the World Economic Forum.

For his work on the measurement of societal well-being, in 2010, he was awarded 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.

Since 2002, he is a Professor of Economic Statistics at the Economics and Finance Department of the University of Rome Tor Vergata. Since 2014 he is also Senior Fellow of the LUISS "School of European Political Economy".

In August 2009 he was nominated President of the Italian Statistical Institute (Istat). Under his leadership, Istat undertook a wide range of innovative initiatives aimed at improving the quality of Italian statistics, as well as to improve the dissemination and the communication of data. Especially important has been the launch of the initiative to measure "Equitable and Sustainable Well-Being" through a set of indicators, also available at regional level. From June 2011 to April 2013 he was Chair of the Conference of European Statisticians, a body of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), and Chair of the Board of the World Bank International Comparison Programme for the measurement of purchasing power parities worldwide.

From 28 April 2013 to 22 February 2014 he was Minister of labour and social policies in the Italian Government.

Currently, he is Co-chair of the "Independent Expert Advisory Group on the Data Revolution for Sustainable Development" established by the Secretary General of the United Nations, Co-Chair (with prof. T. Atkinson) of the Statistical Advisory Panel for the Human Development Report of the United Nations, 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 Council of the International Statistical Institute (ISI), member of the “Commission Economique de la Nation” of the French Government, as well as member of the Board of the “Agnelli Foundation”, of the “ENEL Foundation”, of the “Aurelio Peccei Foundation”, of the "Save the Children - Italy", of the "WWF - Italy".

He is author of more than ninety articles on economic and statistical topics, 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.