Is a full professor of Public Finance at the University of Pavia and a corresponding member of Istituto Lombardo – Accademia di Scienze e Lettere. An Alumnus of Collegio Ghislieri, he studied in Pavia (degree in Economics and PhD in Public Finance) and at the London School of Economics where he obtained both a Master's degree and a PhD in Economics.

His research is mainly focused on the political role of mass media, public economics, and the economic role of political institutions.

His work has been published in leading international journals in economics and political science such as the Journal of the European Economic Association, Journal of Politics and Journal of Public Economics. He is a member of the editorial board of lavoce.info.

In 2013-14 he was part of a working group in the context of the spending review led by Carlo Cottarelli. In 2015 he received the Ghislieri Prize alongside Virginio Rognoni, and in 2016 he was awarded the Hicks-Tinbergen Medal – together with James M. Snyder, Jr. – for the best article published in the previous two years in the Journal of the European Economic Association.

Since April 2025 he has been a member of the Board of Directors of the CSF Foundation.