Keele Management School

I hold an LLB in Law from the University of Milan, an MSc in Economics from Warwick University, an MA in Social Policy from Warwick University and a PhD in Economic Policy from the Universities of Milan (joint programme of Bocconi, Cattolica and Statale).

Before joining Keele in 2006, I was a Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge and a Lecturer in Economic Analysis of Competition Law and Regulation at Brunel University.

I am affiliated with the CESifo Research Network (Public Sector Economics Area) and the Rimini Centre for Economic Research.

My current research interests are in fiscal policy, international finance, and political economy.

I am currently working on the analysis of the long-run sustainability of sovereign debt in the European Monetary Union, within a non-linear framework. This includes testing for the sustainability of the government’s intertemporal budget constraint, as well as estimating a fiscal authorities’ reaction function to budgetary disequilibria. Non linearities are considered in the form of state-varying adjustments of the fiscal policy variables in presence of positive/negative and/or large/small disequilibria, as well as in different phases of the economic cycle.

A second (and related) stream of research refers to the sustainability of the current account and the empirical testing of the hypothesis of “twin deficits” for the GIPS countries (i.e. Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain), trying to identify a possible link between current account and budgetary unbalances.

Current Projects

“The Political Economy of the Growth of Governments”, under revision.

“Debt Sustainability and Financial Crises: Evidence from the GIIPS” (with C. Milas), CESifo Working Paper 3594, 2011.

“Nonlinear Fiscal Policies and the Crisis of the EMU” (with C.Milas), forthcoming 2012, CESifo Working Paper.

“Estimating a Fiscal Reaction Function with Time and State-Varying Thresholds”

“Twin Deficits and the Effect of Fiscal Policy”

External Activities

2012   External Examiner, PhD Thesis, University of Pretoria, South Africa2010 - External Examiner, University of Greenwich2007 - Member of the CESifo research network, Public Sector Economics2008 - Research Fellow, Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis2006 - Academic visitor, Department of Economics, Warwick University (summer term)

Refereeing

ESRC, Economic Inquiry, Public Choice, Applied Economics, Applied Economics Letters, Regional Studies, Oxford University Press, Fiscal Studies, Economic Modelling.

Membership of Editorial Boards

Advisory Editor for Public Finance (Volume 55), 2008.

PhD Supervision

Taptuk Emre Ercok (year 3), Gohou Danon (year 2).

Selected Conference/Workshop Presentations

20th International Conference on Computational Statistics, Limassol, Cyprus 2012.

International Institute of Public Finance Annual Conference, “Public Finance, Public Debt and Global Recovery”, Dresden 2012 (2 papers).

International Finance and Banking Society Conference on "Rethinking Banking and Finance: Money, Macro, and Models", Valencia 2012.

International Monetary Fund, Training Programme on Macroeconomic Management, 2012.

5th International conference on Computational and Financial Econometrics, University of London, December 2011.

CESifo Area Conference on Public Sector Economics, Munich 2011. (invited paper)

Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis, annual conference, Rimini 2010 (invited paper)

CESifo Area Conference on Public Sector Economics, Munich 2009. (invited paper)

CESifo Area Conference on Macro, Money and International Finance, Munich 2008 (invited discussant)

Royal Economic Society, Annual Conference, Warwick 2008

Bielefeld 1st ARC Workshop on Pensions and the Reform of the Welfare State (invited presentation)

International Institute of Public Finance, Warwick 2007 (2 papers).

World Congress of the Public Choice Society, Amsterdam 2007.

Public Economic Theory annual conference, Bejing 2004.

International Institute of Public Finance Annual Conference, Bocconi, Milan, 2004

Royal Economic Society, annual conference, Swansea, April 2004

Seminar: “Financing and Managing Public Services”, Oxford University, March 2003

North American Meeting of the Econometric Society, University of California, Los Angeles, June 2002

European Public Choice Society, Annual Meeting, Belgirate, April 2002 (2 papers).

Society of Non-linear Dynamics and Econometrics Meeting, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, March 2002.

International Institute of Public Finance, annual meeting, Linz, August 2002.

G. Legrenzi and C. Milas (2012), ''Long-Run Debt Sustainability and Threshold Adjustments: Non-Linear Empirical Evidence from the GIIPS'', Economics Bulletin, Vol. 32 No. 3 pp. 2586-2593.

G. Legrenzi and C. Milas  (2012), “Fiscal Policy Sustainability, Economic Cycle and Financial Crises: Some Evidence from the GIPS”, Proceedings of the 20^th International Conference on Computational Statistics, pp.485-498, Lymassol, Cyprus.

G. Legrenzi and C. Milas (2012), “Non-linearities and the Sustainability of the Government’s Intertemporal Budget Constraint”, Economic Inquiry, 50(4), pp. 988-999.

J. Bennett, E. Iossa, G. Legrenzi (2010), “Commercial Activity as Insurance: the Investment Behaviour of Nonprofit Organisations”, Annals of Public and Cooperative economics, 81: 445–465.

G. Legrenzi (2008), “The Permanent Impact of Domestic Income on the Growth of Governments”, Public Finance/Finances Publiques 55(1-2), pp.22-47.

G. Legrenzi and C. Milas  (2006), “Non-linear real exchange rate effects in the UK labour market”, Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics and Econometrics, 10(1),

G. Legrenzi (2004), “The Displacement Effect in the Growth of Governments”, Public Choice, 120(1-2), pp: 191-204.

J. Bennett, E. Iossa, G. Legrenzi (2003), “The Role of Commercial Nonprofit Organisations in the Provision of Public Services”, Oxford Review of Economic Policy 19(2), pp.335-347.

G. Legrenzi and C. Milas (2002), “The Role of Omitted Variables in Identifying a Long-Run Equilibrium for the Italian Government Growth”, International Tax and Public Finance, August 2002; 9(4): 435-49.

G. Legrenzi and C. Milas (2002), “Non Linear and Asymmetric Adjustment in the Local Revenue-Expenditure Models: Some Evidence from the Italian Municipalities”, Proceedings of the 2002 North American Summer Meetings of the Econometric Society, Volume 1: Urban and Public Economics, edited by David K. Levine, William Zame, Lawrence Ausubel, Roger Gordon, Therese McGuire and John Rust.

G. Legrenzi and C. Milas (2002), “A Multivariate Approach to the Growth of Governments", Public Finance Review, January 2002; 30(1): 56-76.

G. Legrenzi and C. Milas (2002), "Beyond the Demand: the Importance of Supply-Side and Institutional Factors in the Growth of Governments”, Applied Economics Letters, June 2002; 9(8): 523-27.

G. Legrenzi (2001), “The Role of Transfers in the Growth of the Italian Public Expenditure”, Rivista Internazionale di Scienze Sociali, July-Sept. 2001; 109(3): 313-29.

G. Legrenzi and M. Talamona (2001), “Social and Fiscal Dumping in the European Monetary Union”, Economia Internazionale Vol. 54 (2). p 235-49.

G. Legrenzi (2000), “An Empirical Analysis of the Relationships among State Transfers, Local Revenues and Expenditures in the Growth of the Italian Government”, Journal of Public Finance & Public Choice 2000; 18(2-3): 171-85.

G. Legrenzi (2000), “The Long-run Relationships between Public Sector Size and Economic Growth: Income Elasticity and Causality of the Italian General Government Expenditure (1861-1998)”, RISEC- International Review of Economics and Business, September 2000; 47(3): 415-37.

G. Legrenzi (2000),“Evolution in the Demand for Welfare Services in Italy and in the European Union: the Crisis of the Welfare State” (Italian with English abstract), il Risparmio, Gennaio 2001.

G. Legrenzi (1999), “The Private Provision of Public Goods” (Italian with English abstract), Il Risparmio 2/ 1999.

G. Legrenzi (1999), “The Global Commons in the Evolution of the EU Environmental Economic Policies” (Italian with English abstract), Quaderni dell’Istituto Lombardo, Accademia di Scienze e Lettere, 1999.

G. Legrenzi (1997), “The Role of Non-profit Organisations in the Private Provision of Public Goods” (Italian with English abstract), Il Risparmio 6/1997.

• FIN-40010 Quantitative Methods for Finance (MSc)
• ECO-30001 Microeconomics III (UG, level 3)
• ECO-20040 Open Economy Macroeconomics (UG, level 2)
• ECO-20037 Contemporary Issues in Economics (UG, level 2)