I am a political economist and a Max Weber Postdoctoral Fellow at the European University Institute, affiliated with the Florence School of Transnational Governance.

My research seeks to understand how political institutions operate in democratic systems, and why they succeed or fail at achieving effective outcomes under strain. My agenda focuses on political selection, voter participation, electoral systems, and accountability. More broadly, my work connects political economy, comparative politics, economics of institutions and culture, and demography.

Methodologically, I combine causal inference and computational methods to analyze large-scale administrative data, social media and legislative text corpora, survey and experimental data.

My research has been featured in The Economist, The Washington Post, and Vox, among other outlets.

I received my PhD in Social and Political Science cum laude and my MSc in Economics from Bocconi University. I worked at the Dondena Centre for Research on Social Dynamics and Public Policy on the ERC-funded project IFAMID.

Contact me at francesco.mattioli@eui.eu.