Economic development is a study that prepares students to use economic theories to create policies that help a nation’s people prosper economically and socially. This area of economics focuses on the growth of a country and its citizens.

Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic within the European Union, located in Southern Europe. To the north, it borders France, Switzerland, Austria, and Slovenia along the Alps.

The PhD is a doctoral degree, specifically called a "doctor of philosophy" degree. This is misleading because PhD holders are not necessarily philosophers (unless they earned their degree in philosophy!). That said, PhD recipients are able to engage in thought experiments, reason about problems, and solve problems in sophisticated ways.