About me

Marco Delmastro is a social scientist whose work focuses on the architecture of human collective life — on cognition, networks, public debate, misinformation, and the dynamics of cooperation and conflict. His research draws on cognitive science, computational social science, network analysis, sociology, and philosophy, alongside his core training in economics and political economy, and has been produced in long-standing collaborations with researchers in physics, computer science, sociology, psychology, and neuroscience.

He is the author of On the Measurement of Social Phenomena: A Methodological Approach (Springer, 2021), co-author of Big Data (Il Mulino, 2019) and The Economics of Organizational Design (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), and has published in journals including PNAS Nexus, Scientific Reports, The BMJ, PLOS ONE, Social Science Computer Review, Food Policy, the European Journal of Communication, the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, and the Journal of Industrial Economics.

He holds the Italian national scientific qualification for full professorship in Economics, Applied Economics, and Political Economy. He is currently Head of AI at AGCOM, the Italian communications regulator, and is research associate at CREF – Enrico Fermi Research Center (Rome) and Ca' Foscari University (Venice). He is a member of the IRIS Academic Research Group. Alongside his academic work, he has held senior institutional roles in fields including competition, regulation, media pluralism, rights protection, misinformation, and artificial intelligence, both in Italy and in international bodies, and writes regularly for Italian newspapers and intellectual venues.

Current book project 

On the Human Being is the first volume of a broader project that aims to extend a relational ontology of the human being across the domains of nature, culture, and the symbolic and religious life. This first volume offers a sustained synthesis across cognitive science, anthropology, social theory, network science, and philosophy, developing the foundational ontology and tracing its consequences across the human and social sciences. The manuscript is complete (unpublished draft); a second volume — on culture and symbolic life — is currently underway. 

Manuscript available on request from the author (see Contact). 

Research interests

Computational social science

Modelling Infodemics on a Global Scale: A 30 Countries Study using Epidemiological and Social Listening Data (with Edoardo Loru, Francesco Gesualdo and Matteo Cinelli), arXiv, 2025

Dynamics and triggers of misinformation on vaccines (with Emanuele Brugnoli), PLOS ONE, 20(1), 2025

Unveiling the Hidden Agenda: Biases in News Reporting and Consumption (with Alessandro Galeazzi, Antonio Peruzzi, Emanuele Brugnoli, and Fabiana Zollo), PNAS Nexus, 3(11), 2024

Combining Natural Language Processing and Statistical Methods to Assess Gender Gaps in the Mediated Personalization of Politics (with Emanuele Brugnoli and Rosaria Simone), Social Science Computer Review, 2024

Networks

From Pirate Radios to Social Media Giants: How Network Architecture Shapes Market Power and Social Structure (with Antonio Scala), available at SSRN, 2026

Modelling the Growth of the Network Value (with Antonio Scala), Chaos, 185, 2024

The explosive value of the networks (with Antonio Scala), Scientific Reports, 3, 1037, 2023

Public debate 

Understanding the complex links between social media and health behaviour (with Fabiana Zollo, Andrea Baronchelli, Cornelia Betsch and Walter Quattrociocchi), The BMJ, 2024

National or local infodemic? The demand for news in Italy during COVID-19 (with Stefano Castriota and Mirko Tonin), International Journal of Health Economics and Management, 2023

Depression, reduced education, and bias perceptions as risk factors of beliefs in misinformation (with Marinella Paciello), Scientific Reports, 12, 16408, 2022

Google, Facebook, and what else? Measuring the hybridity of Italian journalists by their use of sources (with Sergio Splendore), European Journal of Communication, 36(1), 2021 — Best Article of the Year, EJC 2021

Viewpoint: Social Monitoring for Food Policy and Research: Directions and Implications (with Fabiana Zollo), Food Policy, 105, 102147, 2021

Depressive symptoms in response to COVID-19 and lockdown: a cross-sectional study on Italian population (with Giorgia Zamariola), Scientific Reports, 10, 22457, 2020 

Economics

• Digital economy

The privacy paradox: a challenge for decision theory? (with Jacopo Arpetti), Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, 48 (4), 2021

Big Data (with Antonio Nicita), Il Mulino, 2019 

• Industrial organization (theory of the firm)

The Economics of Organizational Design: Theoretical Insights and Empirical Evidence (with Massimo Colombo), Palgrave Macmillan, 2008

High performance work practices, decentralization, and profitability: evidence from panel data (with Massimo Colombo and Larissa Rabbiosi), Industrial and Corporate Change, 16 (6), 2007 

Delegation of authority in business organizations: an empirical test (with Massimo Colombo), Journal of Industrial Economics, LII (1), 2004

The determinants of organizational change and structural inertia: technological and organizational factors (with Massimo Colombo), Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, 11 (4), 2002

The determinants of the management hierarchy: evidence from Italian plants, International Journal of Industrial Organization, 20 (1), 2002

Some stylized facts on organization and its evolution (with Massimo Colombo), Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 40 (3), 1999 

• Economics of innovation

Entrepreneurs’ human capital and the start-up size of new technology-based firms (with Massimo Colombo and Luca Grilli), International Journal of Industrial Organization, 22 (8-9), 2004 

How effective are technology incubators? Evidence from Italy (with Massimo Colombo), Research Policy, 31 (7), 2002

Technology-based entrepreneurs: Does Internet make a difference? (with Massimo Colombo), Small Business Economics, 16 (3), 2001

A note on the relation between size, ownership status and plant’s closure: sunk costs vs. strategic size liability (with Massimo Colombo), Economic Letters, 69 (3), 2001

Technology use and plant closure (with Massimo Colombo), Research Policy, 30 (1), 2001

• Antitrust, regulation and policy

An empirical analysis of the impact of structural changes in the mobile market (with Otello Ardovino), Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, 48(2), 2021

• Agri-food economics

The economics of collective reputation: evidence from the wine industry (with Stefano Castriota), American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 97 (2), 2015

Tasters’ bias in wine guides’ quality evaluations (with Daniele Curzi and Stefano Castriota), Applied Economics Letters, 20 (12), 2013

Seller reputation: individual, collective and institutional Factors (with Stefano Castriota), Journal of Wine Economics, 7 (1), 2012

Philosophy and methods 

On the Human Being (volume I, Human Nature) — book manuscript complete, unpublished. See Current book project above. 

On the Human Being, preprint of work-in-progress materials, PhilArchive, 2025 

Some Reflections on Public Debate and the Formation of Public Opinion, Azimuth, 22/2023

On the Measurement of Social Phenomena: A Methodological Approach, Springer, 2021 

Ongoing research projects

• The dynamics and value of networks. Long-term collaboration with Antonio Scala (CNR-ISC) on the evolution of network effects, the explosive growth of network value, and the relation between network architecture, market power, and social structure.

• Morphology of human relations. Empirical work on the structure of human groups, the dynamics of relational ties, and the network architecture of sociality — drawing on cognitive science, anthropology, and network analysis. Closely connected to the book On the Human Being.

• Public sphere and public debate. Work on the formation of public opinion, the role of digital media in collective deliberation, the dynamics of (mis)information, and the architecture of the contemporary public sphere — carried out in collaboration with research groups across computational social science, network science, sociology, and media studies.

• Cognition and decision-making. Interest in the cognitive and psychological foundations of social behavior, particularly where mainstream decision theory and rational-choice models meet their empirical limits — pursued in collaboration with research groups across cognitive psychology, behavioral economics, and computational social science.