Associate Professor @ University of Bologna

Department of Economics

Bologna, Italy

E-mail: denni [dot] tommasi [at] unibo [dot] it

Download CV (last update: 3/2025)

Google Scholar, Teaching, Bsky

Bio: I am an Associate Professor at the University of Bologna (Italy). Prior to this position, I served as an Assistant Professor at the same University from 2021 to 2023, and at Monash University (Australia) from 2018 to 2021. I earned a Ph.D. in Economics in 2017 from ECARES, Université libre de Bruxelles (Belgium). I am also an Invited Researcher at J-PAL and a Research Fellow at IZA and SoDA Labs.

Research topics: 

Development economics: household welfare, food safety and security. 

Labor economics: employment prospects of job seekers.

Causal inference: measurement error, program evaluation.

RESEARCH

Current projects in development or labor economics:

4. "Multi-faceted Vocational Training Programs for Idle Refugee Youths: Experimental Evidence from Uganda" (with T. Wicker) [AEA RCT #0014460] (pilot ongoing)

3. "Active labor market policies and job seekers’ career trajectories" (with V. Rattini, V. Scrutinio and G. Zanella)

Current projects in causal inference:

1. "Strengthening causal inference: using AI to improve monitoring data quality" (with K. Ackermann)

Working papers:

4. "Power analysis for research designs leveraging spatial variation" (with S. Becker and L. Zhang). 9/2025. [last version] [technical manual for econometricians] [replication] [Stata codes for power]

3. "Quality upgrading in the street food market: are better infrastructure and training sufficient?" (with C. Brown) [AEA RCT #0008797]. 7/2025. [slides] [last version]

2. "Reducing the digital divide for marginalized households" (with G. Barone and A. Loviglio) [AEA RCT #0012259]. 7/2025. [slides] [IZA working paper] [last version]

1. "Diffusion in social networks: experimental evidence on information sharing vs persuasion'' (with M. Fafchamps and D.  Pakrashi) [AEA RCT #0005801] [pre-analysis plan accepted at Journal of Development Economics]. 4/2025. [slides] [last version]

Publications:

10. "Identifying Program Benefits when Participation is Misreported" (with L. Zhang). Journal of Applied Econometrics, 2024 [paper] [online appendix] [simulations] [replication] [Stata command: ssc install ivreg2m]

9. "Bounding Program Benefits when Participation is Misreported" (with L. Zhang). Journal of Econometrics, 2024 [paper] [online appendix] [simulations] [replication] [slides] [Stata command: ssc install ivbounds]

8. "Time of Day and High Stakes Cognitive Assessments" (with A. Gaggero). Economic Journal, 2023 [paper] [online appendix] [replication] [slides] [Coverage: El Pais, UGR Divulga, Nada es Gratis, BigThink, SmartCompany, Lens, Money, IZA newsroom] [AES 2024 Award for Best Paper in Health Economics in 2023, Asociación de Economia de la Salud (AES)]

7. "The More the Poorer? Resource Sharing and Scale Economies in Large Families" (with R. Calvi, J. Penglase and A. Wolf). Journal of Development Economics, 2023 [paper] [online appendix] [replication] [slides] [Coverage: IZA newsroom]

6. "LATE with Missing or Mismeasured Treatment" (with R. Calvi and A. Lewbel). Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, 2022 [paper] [online appendix] [simulations] [replication] [Stata command: ssc install ivreg2m]

5. "Household Responses to Cash Transfers" (with B. De Rock and T. Potoms). Economic Development and Cultural Change, 2022. [paper] [online appendix]

4. "Informational Shocks and Food Safety: A Field Study on Street Vendors in Urban India" (with G. Daniele and S. Mookerjee). The Review of Economics and Statistics, 2021. [paper] [online appendix] [Coverage: VoxDev, Ideas for India (English, Hindi, Bengali, Video Presentation), World Bank Blogs, InnoAid, Monash Research Awards, Monash Impact, Telegraph India, Times of India, Hindustan; Shortlisted 2015 WAF Award]

3. "Control of Resources, Bargaining Power and the Demand of Food: Evidence from PROGRESA". Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2019. [paper] [online appendix]

2. "The Effect of Experts' Opinion on Prices of Art Works: The case of Peter Brueghel the Younger" (with A. Radermecker and V. Ginsburgh). Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2019. [paper] [online appendix] [Coverage: Monash Impact]

1. "Estimating Household Resource Shares: A Shrinkage Approach" (with A. Wolf). Economics Letters, 2018. [paper] [older and longer working paper]

Other publications:

6. “Financial literacy in refugee settlements” (with V. Giuffrida, V. Maone and C. Mingo). WFP Occasional Paper Series, 2025 [report]

5. "Leveraging Visual LLMs and Computer Vision for Cost-Effective and Consistent Street Food Safety Assessment in Kolkata India” (with A. Chernikov and K. Ackermann). AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 2025. [paper].

4. "Estimating Treatment Effects When Program Participation is Misreported" (with C. Baum and L. Zhang). Stata Journal, 2024. [paper] [Stata command: ssc install ivreg2m]

3. "Bounding Program Benefits When Participation is Misreported: Estimation and Inference With Stata" (with A. Lin and L. Zhang). Stata Journal, 2024. [paper] [Stata command: ssc install ivbounds]

2. "Measuring Women's Empowerment in Collective Households" (with R. Calvi and J. Penglase). AEA Papers and Proceedings, 2022. [paper]

1. "Measuring Poverty Within The Household" (with C. Brown, R. Calvi and J. Penglase). IZA World of Labor, 2022. [paper]

Software packages:

2. “ivreg2m: Stata module to identify treatment-effects estimates with potentially misreported and endogenous program participation” (with C. Baum and L. Zhang). 2022. [link]

1. “ivbounds: Stata module to bound treatment-effects estimates with potentially misreported and endogenous program participation” (with A. Lin and L. Zhang). 2021. [link]