Alessandra Casella is an economist, researcher, professor, and author. Currently, she is an Economics and Political Science professor at Columbia University.

Life Casella received her bachelor's degree with a summa cum laude in Economics and Social Sciences from Bocconi University, Milan, in March 1983. She furthered her studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she received her master's degree and Ph.D. in economics, 1988. Her thesis focused on hyperinflation and the real exchange rates and supply shocks in the economy. After graduating, Casella's research continues to focus on economics, with more specific interests in public economics, experimental economics, and political economy.

In 2019, Casella was the director of the Columbia Laboratory for the Social Sciences, and a fellow in both the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge and the British Center for Economic Policy Research. She is the author of two books: Networks and Markets. Contributions from Economics and Sociology and Storable Votes: Protecting the Minority Voice.

Career Academic Casella started her teaching career at UC Berkeley as an assistant professor from 1987 to 1993. From 1996 to 2010, she was the part-time Director of Studies at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS, School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences) based in Paris, France. In the time between her career in UC Berkeley and Directorship at EHESS, Casella became an associate Professor of Economics at Columbia University, New York, from 1993 till 1997. Her career with Columbia University continued where she eventually became a professor of economics at Columbia University in 1997 until current. Since then, Casella has taught Ph.D. courses in Experimental Methods in Political Economy and Special Topics in Political Economics. She has also taught undergraduate classes in political economy and experimental economics. Since 2017, Casella has also become a professor of Political Science at Columbia University.

Journals

1996: Invited editor for the European Economic Review. A special issue on the domain of the state 2007: Invited editor for the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization. A special issue in honor of Economist Alan Kirman 2004–2009: Associate Editor for the Journal of Public Economic Theory 2013–2017: On the editorial board for the Journal of Experimental Political Science 2016–current: Associate Editor for the American Economic Review

Others

1988–1997: Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge 1988: Research Fellow at the Center for Economic Policy Research, London 1994–1995: Panel member at Economic Policy 1997: Research associate at National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge 2004–2006: Economics panel member at the National Science Foundation 2012: Director at Columbia Experimental Laboratory for Social Sciences 2013–2016: Scientific Board member at AXA Research Fund

Fellowships

Fall 1989: National Bureau of Economic Research, Ford Foundation Fellowship 1990–1991: Hoover Institution, Stanford University, National Fellow 1992–1993: Institute for Policy Reform, Washington, D.C., Junior Research Fellow 1993: German Marshall Fund of the United States Fellowship 1997–1998: Russell Sage Foundation, New York, N.Y., Fellow 2004–2005: Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, N.J., Member 2006–2007: John Simon Guggenheim Fellow 2012–2013: Straus Institute Fellow, NYU Law School

Academic publications

+ Journal publications YearTitlePublicationAuthor(s)1984Elasticita' di Sostituzione tra Energia, Capitale e Lavoro nel Settore Manifatturiero Italiano 1960-1978Giornale degli Economisti, XLIII, 491–505.Alessandra Casella1989Integracion Monetaria Europea y la Economia de la Sostitucion de MonedasInformacion Comercial Espanola, November, 47–50.Alessandra Casella1989Testing for Rational Bubbles with Exogenous or Endogenous Fundamentals: the German Hyperinflation Once MoreJournal of Monetary Economics, 24,109–122.Alessandra Casella1990Economic Exchange during HyperinflationJournal of Political Economy, 98, 1–27.Alessandra Casella & Jonathan Feinstein1992Federalism and Clubs. Towards an Economic Theory of Overlapping Political JurisdictionsEuropean Economic Review, 36, 639–646.Alessandra Casella & Bruno Frey1992A Note on Bargaining and InflationEconomic Letters, 38, 393–398.Alessandra Casella & Jonathan Feinstein1992On Markets and Clubs.  Economic and Political Integration of Regions with Unequal ProductivityAmerican Economic Review, 82, 115–121.Alessandra Casella1992Participation in a Currency UnionAmerican Economic Review, 82, 847–863.Alessandra Casella1994Trade as Engine of Political Change. A ParableEconomica, 61, 267–284.Alessandra Casella1996On Market Integration and the Development of Institutions.  The Case of International Commercial ArbitrationEuropean Economic Review, 40, 155–186.  (Reprinted in O. C. Ashenfelter and R. K. Iyengar (eds.), 2009, Economics of Commercial Arbitration and Dispute Resolution, Edward Elgar Publishing). Alessandra Casella1996Large Countries, Small Countries and the Enlargement of Trade BlocsEuropean Economic Review, 40, 389–415.Alessandra Casella1996Can Foreign Aid Accelerate Stabilization?The Economic Journal, 106, 605–619.Alessandra Casella & Barry Eichengreen1999Tradable Deficit Permits.  Efficient Implementation of the Stability Pact in the European Monetary UnionEconomic Policy, 29, 323–361. (Reprinted in Brunila, A., Buti, M. and D. Franco (eds.), 2001, The Stability and Growth Pact, Palgrave: London, 394–413.).Alessandra Casella2001Product Standards and International Trade. Harmonization through Private Coalitions?Kyklos, 54, 243–264. (Reprinted in Henson, S. and J.S. Wilson (eds.), 2005, The WTO and Technical Barriers to Trade, Edward Elgar Publishing: Cheltenham, U.K., 494–515.)Alessandra Casella2001The Role of Market Size in the Formation of JurisdictionsThe Review of Economic Studies, 68, 83–108.Alessandra Casella2001Market Mechanisms for Policy Decisions. Tools for the European UnionEuropean Economic Review, 45, 995–1006.Alessandra Casella2002Public Goods in Trade: On the Formation of Markets and JurisdictionsInternational Economic Review, 43, 437–462.Alessandra Casella & Jonathan Feinstein2002Anonymous Market and Group Ties in International TradeJournal of International Economics, 58, 19–47.

(Reprinted in Falvey, R. E. and U. Kreickemeier, (eds.), 2005, Recent Developments in International Trade Theory, Edward Elgar Publishing: Cheltenham, U.K.)Alessandra Casella & James Rauch2003Overcoming Informational Barriers in International Resource Allocations: Prices and TiesThe Economic Journal, 113, 21–42.Alessandra Casella & James Rauch2005Storable VotesGames and Economic Behavior, 51, 391–419.Alessandra Casella2005Redistribution Policy: A European ModelJournal of Public Economics, 89, 1305–1331.Alessandra Casella2006Why Personal Ties Cannot Be BoughtAmerican Economic Review, 96, 2, 261–264.Alessandra Casella & Nobuyuki Hanaki2006An Experimental Study of Storable VotesGames and Economic Behavior, 57, 123–154.Alessandra Casella, Andrew Gelman, & Thomas Palfrey2007Storable Votes: Protecting Minorities without Sacrificing EfficiencyCESifo DICE Report, 5, 3, 17–22.Alessandra Casella, Thomas Palfrey, & Raymond Riezman2008Information Channels in Labor Markets. On the Resilience of Referral HiringJournal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 66, 492–513.Alessandra Casella & Nobuyuki Hanaki2008A Simple Scheme to Improve the Efficiency of ReferendaJournal of Public Economics, 92: 2240–2261.Alessandra Casella & Andrew Gelman2008Minorities and Storable VotesQuarterly Journal of Political Science, 3: 165–200.Alessandra Casella, Thomas Palfrey, & Raymond Riezman 2010Protecting Minorities in Large Binary Elections. A Test of Storable Votes Using Field DataThe B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy (Advances), Vol. 10: Iss. 1.  Alessandra Casella, Shuky Ehrenberg, Andrew Gelman, & Jie Shen2011Agenda Control as a Cheap Talk Game. Theory and Experiments with Storable VotesGames and Economic Behavior, 72: 46–76.Alessandra Casella2012Competitive Equilibrium in Markets for VotesJournal of Political Economy, 120: 593–658.Alessandra Casella, Aniol Llorente-Saguer & Thomas Palfrey2014Vote Trading with and without Party LeadersJournal of Public Economics, 112:115–128.Alessandra Casella, Thomas Palfrey, & Sebastien Turban2014Democracy Undone. Systematic Minority Advantage in Competitive Vote MarketsGames and Economic Behavior, 88: 47–70. Alessandra Casella & Sebastien Turban2017Storable Votes and Judicial Nominations in the U.S. SenateJournal of Theoretical Politics, 29: 243–272.Alessandra Casella, Sébastien Turban, & Gregory Wawro2017Democracy for Polarized Committees. The Tale of Blotto’s LieutenantsGames and Economic Behavior, 106, 239–259.Alessandra Casella, Jean-Francois Laslier, & Antonin Macé2018Communication in Context: Interpreting Promises in an Experiment on Competition and TrustPNAS, 115 (5) 933–938.Alessandra Casella, Navin Kartik, Luis Sanchez, & Sébastien Turban2018A Property Rights Approach to Temporary Work VisasJournal of Legal Studies, 47 (S1), S195–S227.Alessandra Casella & Adam Cox

Working papers

“Trading Votes for Votes. An Experiment” (with Thomas Palfrey), May 2017 “Storable Votes and Quadratic Voting. An Experiment on Four California Propositions” (with Luis Sanchez), in progress.

Books

Storable Votes: Protecting the Minority Voice. Oxford University Press, New York, 2012. Print Networks and Markets. Contributions from Economics and Sociology (With James Raunch), Russell Sage Foundation, New York, 2001.

+ Chapters in Books YearBookChapterPublication1989A European Central Bank?"Management of a Common Currency" p. 131-156Cambridge University Press: Cambridge1992Establishing a Central Bank"Voting on the Adoption of a Common Currency" p. 164-184Cambridge University Press: Cambridge1994Monetary Regimes in Transition"Halting Inflation in Italy and France after World War II" p. 312-345Cambridge University Press: Cambridge1995Politics and Institutions in an Integrated Europe"Elements for a Theory of Jurisdictional Change" p. 11-41Springer: New York and Heidelberg1996Harmonization and Fair Trade"Free Trade and Evolving Standards" p. 119-156MIT Press: Cambridge2001Ökonomie als Grundlage politischer Entscheidungen"Policy Coordination and National Sovereignty in a Monetary Union. Two Easy Recipes" p. 199–217Leske plus Budrich: Opladen2001Networks and Markets “Concluding Remarks. Questions for Policy” p. 328-3372001The Impact of EMU on Europe and the Developing Countries"Games for Central Bankers. Markets vs Politics in Public Policy Decisions" p. 11-27Oxford University Press: Oxford

References