Energy Economist Outlook

In this episode the Prof. Matteo Di Castelnuovo from SDA Bocconi School of Management has a conversation with Professor Monica Giulietti, Professor of Industrial Economics at Nottingham University Business School.She argues that while economists share a "common language," the complex energy sector demands "specialist knowledge". Moving from analyzing supermarket pricing to the UK’s energy liberalization, she champions Industrial Economics for its real-world policy impact. Her current research tackles the legacy of the 2022 energy crisis, investigating persistent debt among the vulnerable and evaluating government interventions to shelter consumer.

In this episode the Prof. Matteo Di Castelnuovo from SDA Bocconi School of Management talks with Lucia Parisio full Professor of Public Economics at the University of Milano-Bicocca.Professor Lucia Parisio followed an unconventional academic path, starting with a law degree before earning a PhD in auctions and market design.This background prepared her perfectly to study electricity market design during the critical years of liberalization and privatization. Parisio chose Bicocca for its spirit of innovation and strong culture of cross-fertilisation, convinced of the need to teach environmental and energy economics to non-economists such as engineers and physicists. Her research tackles some of the sector’s most pressing questions: from analyzing price convergence across Europe to detecting market power in Italy’s particularly high-priced electricity market. Most notably, she recently authored a high-impact policy paper for the European Commission on the 2023 EU electricity market reform, offering guidance on the strategic use of long-term contracts. Looking ahead, she is increasingly drawn to the economics and market-design challenges of next-generation decarbonization technologies—including Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and hydrogen.

In this episode the Prof. Matteo Di Castelnuovo from SDA Bocconi School of Management meets professor Arturo Lorenzoni, professor of Energy Economics and Electricity Market Economics at the University of Padova.Electrical engineer turned economist, Professor Arturo Lorenzoni was inspired to pursue energy economics by pioneer Professor Luigi de Paoli. He charts the field’s dramatic transformation: teaching evolved from regulating natural monopolies to managing market liberalization in the 1990s. Now, he observes the market is circling back, with solutions like long-term contracts being reintroduced to mitigate the volatility driven by high renewable penetration. Lorenzoni’s early foresight proved remarkable: his 1993 research on wind and photovoltaics is now "the mainstream of the investments". He is immensely proud of his involvement in the landmark European ExternE project, which pioneered the monetary evaluation of external costs. Today, his focus is modeling long-term 2050 decarbonization scenarios and tackling his "dream" project: successfully designing a new electricity market design to improve upon the current marginal price system.

In this episode the Prof. Matteo Di Castelnuovo from SDA Bocconi School of Management talks with Fulvio Fontini, who is a full Professor of Applied Economics at University of Salento.“What will happen in the next five to ten years is something we have to decide now.”With this urgent call to action, Professor Fulvio Fontini frames the challenge of the energy transition. More than 20 years ago, Fontini entered the energy field through environmental economics and climate change, after an early career in game theory and decision-making under ambiguity.He insists on the essential link between academic research and real-world experience, a perspective shaped by his influential advisory roles for ACER and Italy’s Ministry for the Environment.Co-author of a “self-contained” textbook on electricity economics, Fontini now focuses squarely on the energy transition, a necessary return to sustainability enabled by new technologies.For him, this is an intrinsically interdisciplinary mission, one that demands cooperation between economists, engineers, regulators, and experts in social acceptance.

In this episode the Prof. Matteo Di Castelnuovo from SDA Bocconi School of Management meets withProfessor Machiel Mulder, Prof. of Energy Economics, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Groningen. Prof. Mulder pinpoints his exact career start: January 1, 2000, when he began advising the Dutch government on energy policy.Though initially trained in agricultural economics, Mulder’s research now spans electricity, gas, heat, hydrogen, and the EU emission trading scheme. He defines the energy transition primarily through the lens of policy: asking the crucial question, "What's the economic rationale for governments to intervene?". He notes that these reasons extend beyond climate change externalities to include ensuring security of supply. Mulder is currently compiling his expertise into a new book, Economics of Energy Transition, designed to explain how economists view these crucial concepts. His commitment to complexity is reflected in his multidisciplinary energy minor, co-developed with five other faculties.