Francesco Agostinelli Named Janice and Julian Bers Assistant Professor in the Social Sciences

Francesco Agostinelli has been named Janice and Julian Bers Assistant Professor in the Social Sciences. A leading scholar in labor economics and the economics of education, Agostinelli is an empirical microeconomist who conducts research on child development, education, family economics and applied econometrics. His recent work focuses on the determinants of children’s skill formation, family choices and educational investments in children, the role of socioeconomic environments, and the development of new methods for identifying the mechanisms driving inequality in economic opportunities.

Agostinelli’s service and affiliations include not only departmental roles such as PhD Admission Committee Member, Undergraduate Research Advisory Committee Member, Empirical-Micro Seminar Organizer, and Empirical-Micro Lunch Workshop Organizer, but also Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research in the Children Program, Research Associate at Penn’s Population Studies Center, a member of the Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Global Working Group at the University of Chicago, and a member of the Stone Center for Research on Wealth and Inequality and Mobility at the University of Chicago. This year he received Penn’s Kravis Award for Undergraduate Teaching in recognition of his outstanding teaching in economics.

The late Janice Bers graduated from Penn with an education degree in 1939. Her husband, the late Julian Bers, graduated from Wharton in 1931. He received Penn’s Alumni Award of Merit in 1968, and served as a Trustee of the University, while Janice Bers served as president of her class and on the 50th reunion gift committee.