Fernando Vianello

Fernando Vianello (17 August 1939 – 10 August 2009) was an Italian economist and academic.

Together with Michele Salvati, Sebastiano Brusco, Andrea Ginzburg and Salvatore Biasco, he founded the Faculty of Economics of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia.

In 1963 Vianello graduated with a degree in law from the University of Bologna, presenting a thesis on Italian economic development under the supervision of Paolo Sylos Labini.

In the same year he attended the sixth training course on "Economic Development" organized in Rome by SVIMEZ (Italian Association of Southern Italy's Industries Development), managed by Claudio Napoleoni.

From 1964 to 1966 he was an assistant professor in the "Principles of Political Economy" course held by Sylos Labini at the Faculty of Statistics of the "Sapienza" University of Rome.

In 1966 Vianello enrolled as an undergraduate student at Jesus College, Cambridge, and began attending economic courses taught by Joan Robinson, Nicholas Kaldor, Richard Kahn and James Meade.

In 1968 he obtained a BA degree in economics (Bachelor of Arts Degree) from the University of Cambridge.

During his career Prof. Vianello had the opportunity to collaborate with some of the most important Italian economists of the twentieth century, such as Federico Caffè, Paolo Sylos Labini and Pierangelo Garegnani.

He held a number of posts at several different universities:

Faculty of Economic and Banking Sciences

Faculty of Economics

Faculty of Economics

Over the course of his long career Prof. Vianello developed his expertise in several different research fields.

He worked with the theories of value and distribution of income and paid special attention to the link between capital accumulation and the profit rate.

He analyzed classical political economy theories from Adam Smith, David Ricardo and Karl Marx.

He then tackled important events concerning the Italian economy and the European Union.

Regarding the Italian economy, he first studied the aftermath of the Second World War, then the answer to the workers' struggles of the sixties and early seventies, and most recently Italy's adhesion to the European single currency.

With regard to the European economy, he focused his attention to the reasons, operating ways and the consequences of the European Monetary System and the European single currency.

Finally, he studied the issues of prices, interest rate and effective demand, and developed ideas that were stimulated by the writings of John Maynard Keynes.

Prof. Vianello had a wife, Mariella Vianello née Gramaglia, a journalist who was a member of the Italian Parliament during the Legislature X of Italy.

Mrs. Vianello was also an assessor, appointed at the Comune of Rome firstly by mayor Francesco Rutelli and then by mayor Walter Veltroni.

They had two children, Maddalena and Michele.

A selection of published works written by Prof. Vianello is available online at the website of the Faculty of Economics of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia.