Hi, I’m Lorenzo Maria Casale, 3rd year PhD student in Economics at the University of Zurich. Welcome to my website!

Born and raised in Rome, I hold my Bachelor and Master in Economics from Tor Vergata University. I joined the PhD program in 2022 after a pre-doc with Prof. Hans-Joachim Voth and Prof. Bruno Caprettini.

My research sits at the intersection of political economy and cultural economics, investigating how identity signals and expressive behavior shape political and economic outcomes. I combine causal inference with machine learning methods to study social coordination.

Current projects examine: kinship networks in Italian politics, cultural expression in 21th-century America, and non-verbal communication in presidential debates.