Who: I am an associate professor of economics interested in health and human capital formation.
What: My research fields are health economics, social science genomics, and applied micro.
Where: University of Bologna, department of economics.
Why: For more info, you can contact me at pietro.biroli [at] unibo.it
My CV, google scholar profile, ORCid, and github
My twitter @pietrobiroli
I am an associate professor of economics at the University of Bologna. I obtained my PhD in economics from the University of Chicago, and then was UBS Foundation Assistant Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Zurich. I am a research affiliate at the Jacobs Center for Productive Youth Development at UZH, IZA, fRDB, HCEO, CHILD, CAGE, CEPR, and CESifo.
My research focuses on the early origins and life cycle evolution of health and human capital. I explore the importance of genetics, family investment, and early childhood interventions in explaining health and economic inequality. With my work, I aim to understand the mechanisms through which effective policy interventions and optimal choices of investment can help mitigate innate inequalities and promote health and human capital development.
More broadly, I am interested in Health Economics, Applied Econometrics, and Social Science Genetics.
Biroli, Galama, von Hinke, van Kippersluis, Rietveld, & Thom
Economics and Econometrics of Gene-Environment Interplay
The Review of Economic Studies; (2025)
Malanchini, Allegrini, Nivard, Biroli, Rimfeld, Cheesman, Stumm, Demange, van Bergen, Grotzinger, Raffington, De la Fuente, Pingault, Tucker-Drob, Harden, Plomin.
Genetic associations between non-cognitive skills and academic achievement over development.
Nature Human Behavior; 8, pages2034–2046 (2024)
(bioRxiv working paper, media: Altmetric, youtube summary, youtube findings)
Baker, Biroli, van Kippersluis, & von Hinke,
Advantageous early-life environments cushion the genetic risk for ischemic heart disease.
In PNAS, Vol. 121, No. 27, e2314056121; (2024)
Escobar Carias, Baranov, Maselko, Biroli, & Bhalotra
Maternal Mental Health Responses to COVID-19 Shocks and Uncertainty in Rural Pakistan
in AEA Papers and Proceedings, VOL. 114, pp. 407–11, (2024)
Sevim, Baranov, Bhalotra, Maselko, & Biroli,
Trajectories of Early Childhood Skill Development and Maternal Mental Health
in Journal of Human Resources, 1222-12693R3; (2023)
Koellinger, Okbay, Kweon, Schweinert, Karlsson Linnér, Goebel, Richte, Reiber, Zweck, Belsky, Biroli, Mata, Tucker-Drob, Harden, Wagner, & Hetwig,
Cohort profile: Genetic data in the German Socio-Economic Panel Innovation Sample (SOEP-G)
in Plos one, 18(11), p.e0294896. (2023)
van Kippersluis, Biroli, Dias Pereira, Galama, von Hinke, Meddens, Muslimova, Slob, de Vlaming, & Rietveld,
Overcoming attenuation bias in regressions using polygenic indices.
In Nature Communications (2023)
Bierut, Biroli, Galama, & Thom,
In Journal of Economic Psychology. (2023)
Dias Pereira, Biroli, Galama, von Hinke, van Kippersluis, Rietveld, & Thom,
Gene–Environment Interplay in the Social Sciences.
In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Economics and Finance. Oxford University Press. (2022)
Baranov, Frost, Hagaman, Simmons, Manzoor, Biroli, Bhalotra, Rahman, Sikander, Maselko,
SSM - Mental Health, 100082. (2022)
Biroli, Bosworth, Della Giusta, Di Girolamo, Jaworska, & Vollen,
Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 3259 (2021)
(HCEO working paper, data and code, slides, media: Altmetric)
Demange, Malanchini, Mallard, Biroli, Cox, Grotzinger, Tucker-Drob, Abdellaoui, Arseneault, Caspi, Corcoran, Domingue, Mitchell, van Bergen, Boomsma, Harris, Moffitt, Poulton, Prinz, Sugden, Wertz, Williams, de Zeeuw, Belsky, Harden, Nivard,
Investigating the Genetic Architecture of Non-Cognitive Skills Using GWAS-by-Subtraction.
Nature Genetics. 53, 35–44 (2021)
(FAQ, factsheet, bioRxiv working paper, code, tutoria for GWAS by subtraction , noncog and cog sumstats, media: Altmetric)
Parental Beliefs about Returns to Child Health Investments.
Journal of Econometrics, ISSN 0304-4076. (2020).
(IZA working paper, data and code)
Maselko, Sikander, Turner, Bates, Ahmad, Atif, Baranov, Bhalotra, Bibi, Bibi, Bilal, Biroli, Chung, Gallis, Hagaman, Jamil, Lemasters, & Donnell,
The Lancet Psychiatry, 7(9), 775–787. (2020).
Baranov, Bhalotra, Biroli, & Maselko,
American Economic Review, 110 (3): 824-59. (2020).
(IZA working paper, data and code, slides, econimate video, Media: The Guardian, The Economist, AER Highlights)
Maselko, Hagaman, Bates, Bhalotra, Biroli, Gallis, O'Donnel, Sikander, Rahman,
Social Science & Medicine, 112421, ISSN 0277-9536. (2019).
(media: Altmetric)
Karlsson Linnér, Biroli, Kong, Meddens, Wedow, Fontana, … , Beauchamp,
Nature Genetics, 51: 245–257. (2019).
(FAQ, bioRxiv working paper, sumstats, media: Altmetric, 3sat documentary)
Biroli, Del Boca, Heckman, J. J., Pettler-Heckman, L., Koh, Kuperman, Mokdan, Pronzazo, Ziff,
Evaluation of the Reggio Approach to Early Childhood Education.
Research in Economics, 72(1): 1–32. (2018).
(IZA working paper, appendix, code. media: PlumX)
Biroli, Mourre, & Turrini, "The adjustment mechanism in the Euro Area." Intereconomics, 48(3), 159–166. (2013).
Buti, Turrini, van den Noord, & Biroli, "Reforms and Re-elections in OECD Countries." Economic Policy, 25(61), 61–116. (2010)
Buti, Turrini, van den Noord, & Biroli, "Defying the ‘Juncker Curse’: Can Reformist Governments Be Re-elected?" Empirica, 36(1), 65–100. (2009).
Seeing Stereotypes (arXiv preprint)
with Elisa Baldazzi, Marina Della Giusta, Florent Dubois
Beyond Time: Unveiling the Invisible Burden of Mental Load (arXiv preprint)
with Francesca Barigozzi, Chiara Monfardini, Natalia Montinari, Elena Pisanelli, Sveva Vitellozzi
Talent is Everywhere, Opportunity is Not: Online Role Model Mentoring and Students’ Aspirations (recent version)
with Amalia Di Girolamo, Giuseppe Sorrenti, Maddalena Totarelli.
Moral Hazard Heterogeneity: Genes and Insurance Influence Smoking after a Health Shock (recent version, bioRxiv, code, slides, podcast)
with Laura Zwyssig
Genes, Pubs, and Drinks: Gene-environment interplay and alcohol licensing policy in the United Kingdom.
with Christian Zünd
Psychological Interventions Provide Resilience to Negative Shocks.
with Michelle Escobar Carias, Victoria Baranov, Sonia Bhalotra, and Joanna (Asia) Maselko,
Long-term Reductions in Depression and Intimate Partner Violence Over 8 Years: Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial.
with Michelle Escobar Carias, Victoria Baranov, Lisa Bates, Sonia Bhalotra, and Joanna (Asia) Maselko,
Cognition, personality, and in-group favouritism among children
with Amalia Di Girolamo, Michalis Drouvelis, Matteo Pinna
Genetic and Economic Interaction in Health Formation: The Case of Obesity. (working paper)
Abstract: Small genetic differences at birth confer a comparative advantage in health and human capital formation, and can lead to substantial inequality in long term social and economic outcomes. I develop a structural model of health and human capital formation illustrating the dynamic interaction between genetic inheritance and investments in health over the life cycle. Genetic heterogeneity across individuals can change the utility cost of investment and the production function of health, shifting the incentives to invest in healthy habits. Focusing on Body-Mass-Index (BMI) as a measure of poor health, I consider physical activity and food intake as investments in health, and I evaluate their interaction with specific variants in FTO and other genes associated with BMI in Genome-Wide Association Studies. Applying this model in two different datasets, one of British adolescents and one of US adults, I find that Gene-Environment interaction plays a pivotal role in the evolution of BMI. Food intake has a stronger impact on BMI for those individuals with a particular genetic makeup, and yet they tend to display a higher demand for food. The association of variants in the FTO gene with the hypothalamic regulation of food intake gives a biological foundation to the observed differences in healthy investments. This analysis provides an economic framework of health and human capital formation that integrates recent findings in genetics and molecular biology and sheds light on the interdependence between genes and economic choices of investment.Health and Skill Formation in Early Childhood (UBS wp)
Abstract:This paper analyzes the developmental origins and the evolution of health, cognitive, and noncognitive skills during early childhood, from age 0 to 5. We explicitly model the dynamic interactions of health with the child's behavior and cognitive skills, as well as the role of parental investment. A dynamic factor model corrects for the presence of measurement error in the proxy for the latent traits. Using data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), we find that children's capabilities strongly interact and build on each other: health is an important determinant of early noncognitive development; in turn noncognitive skills have a positive impact on the evolution of both health and cognitive functions; on the other side, the effect of cognitive abilities on health is negligible. Furthermore, all facets of human capital display a high degree of persistence. Finally, mother's investments are an important determinant of the child's health, cognitive, and noncognitive development early in life.BHEPPE: Bologna Health Economics and Public Policy Evaluation
ESSGN: European Social Science Genetics Network
with Titus Galama, Stephanie von Hinke, Nicola Barban, Hans van Kippersluis, Cornelius A. Rietveld, et al. --- Funded by Horizon Europe, Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions
First Conference, Bologna 2022; Second Conference, Bologna 2023;
The BEBE Study
with Anne Brenøe, Claudio Schilter, and Xiaoyue Shan --- Funded by SNSF (189087) and Larsson Rosenquist Foundation
Bachpan Cohort Study: Perinatal depression and child development
with Joanna Maselko, Victoria Baranov, Sonia Bhalotra, et al. --- Funded by NIH
GEIGHEI: Gene-Environment Interplay in the Generation of Health and Education Inequalities (github repo)
with Hans van Kippersluis, Stephanie von Hinke, et al. --- Funded by NORFACE DIAL
Caleidoscuola: web platform for research projects in Italian Schools
STEM-UP! Cooperation and Cognitive Abilities in Primary Schools
with Demis Basso, Antonella Brighi, Amalia Di Girolamo --- Funded by Benecare Foundation and SNSF 197588