Dr. Alessandra Tagini is a Postdoctoral fellow at IHSS. After obtaining her BSc and MSc in Economic and Social Sciences from Bocconi University (Milan), she pursued a PhD in Economics at the University of Tuebingen (Germany), joining the DFG-funded Collaborative Research Center 1070 as PhD student and research fellow. Her research focus was the long run development, in terms of different aspects of wellbeing, of Ancient Societies between the Neolithic and the Iron Age, with a particular focus on the Ancient Near East and on the Western Mediterranean area. In July 2026 she obtained her PhD in Economics with a dissertation entitled Essays on Long-Run Wellbeing Evolution of Ancient Societies.

Dr. Tagini’s main research interests are

1. 1. The coevolution of the cultural and the socioeconomic domains;
   2. Cultural hybridization and transfer of knowledge through human exchange since the Palaeolithic;
   3. Detection of signs of prosperity and collapse in societies’ development;
   4. Long run historical trajectories.

Tagini’s background is in Economics and Economic History, but her approach is interdisciplinary with subjects such as archaeology and anthropology. In line with the above-mentioned research interests, Tagini organized during her PhD a workshop entitled Prosperity and Collapse in Ancient Societies.