LEARLAB - Key Persons
Alessia Marrazzo is a Partner at Lear. She has a wide experience in litigation cases, supporting clients in follow-on damages actions and international arbitration cases. She has advised clients in a variety of sectors, ranging from telecoms, energy, transport, media, jet fuel, prestressed concrete and plastic packaging. At Lear, Alessia has also been involved in several cases before the Italian Competition Authority and has worked on ex-post evaluation analyses of competition policy (mainly related to the State aid framework and merger regulation), on behalf of the European Commission and National Competition Authorities.
Alessia has earned a PhD in Economics at the University of Bologna. During her PhD, she deepened her knowledge in industrial organization and applied economics, and she carried out a research project on the ex-post evaluation of non-price effects of regulatory and competition enforcement interventions.
She specialized in competition, regulation and applied econometrics with a Master at the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics. Before, she obtained a BSc in Economics and a Master in Economics and Finance from the University "Federico II" of Naples, gaining a strong background in microeconomics.
Alessia is fluent in English and has a basic knowledge of Spanish.
Job Titles:
- Assistant
- Event Manager
- Benedetta Ausili / Assistant Event Manager
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- Professors in Academic Research and Teaching at the University of Rome Tor Vergata
Clarissa Lotti is a Consultant at Lear. She joined Lear in April 2022 and has since been involved in competition economics, forensic economics and litigation, and policy assessment and regulation projects.
Prior to joining Lear, Clarissa was a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Economics and Finance of the University of Rome Tor Vergata, where she obtained her Ph.D. in 2021 with an empirical thesis on the economics of public procurement.
During her Ph.D. and Post-Doc, Clarissa assisted professors in academic research and teaching at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, the Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance (EIEF), and the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics (SITE). Her interests centered around the fields of applied microeconomics and applied microeconometrics, with a focus on industrial organization and public economics. She obtained a Master's degree in Economics at the University of Rome Tor Vergata in 2017.
Davide Bellucci joined Lear as Junior Consultant in 2020. He obtained the Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Turin in 2020 with his empirical thesis in public economics, focusing on illegal migration flows and electoral outcomes. He spent the last four months of his Ph.D. as a visiting student at the Centre for Economic Behaviour and Inequality (CEBI) at the University of Copenhagen. During his Ph.D he assisted professors in teaching undergraduate courses of micro and macroeconomics.
Before Lear, he worked as Consultant in the Research and Impact Assessment (RIA) division of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) of the United Nations. At IFAD he was part of a team purposively formed for the creation of the latest IFAD projects' categorization framework. He analysed and categorized a portfolio of 89 projects implemented by IFAD between 2011 and 2014.
He also worked as intern in the Historical Household Budget Project and co-authored a paper with professor Becchetti on gambling addiction and financial literacy, while attending the second level Master in Development Economics and International Cooperation at the University of Rome Tor Vergata.
He obtained his Master Degree in European Economy and Business Law (EEBL) at the University of Rome Tor Vergata with a thesis on the liberalization process of the Italian tobacco market.
Elena Argentesi is a Senior Advisor at Lear. She is an Associate Professor at the Department of Economics of the University of Bologna. She earned a Ph.D. in Economics at the European University Institute. She teaches Competition Economics both at the undergraduate and at the postgraduate level.
Her research interests and publications are in the area of industrial organization and competition policy, with a focus on empirical issues. She has done consultancy work as a technical expert for several public bodies, such as DG Competition and other competition agencies.
Elena Salomone is a Consultant at Lear. She joined Lear in September 2018: since then, she has been involved in several cases of damages quantification for breaches of antitrust legislation, as well as for unfair commercial practices and other types of infringement,
Job Titles:
- a Junior Consultant
- Junior Consultant
Enrico Aprilis joined Lear as a Junior Consultant in April 2024. He previously worked for one year as an Intern at Charles River Associates' Competition Practice in Brussels, where he was mainly involved on a damages estimation case related to the Maritime Car Carriers cartel fined by the European Commission in 2018.
In July 2022 he earned a master's degree in Competition and Market Regulation at the Barcelona School of Economics with an empirical thesis about the effect of the entrance of branded generics in the Chilean Pharmaceutical market. In 2021 he earned a bachelor's degree in Economics and Finance with a Major in Economics from Bocconi University.
Fabio Ferrara is a Junior Consultant at Lear, after joining as a Research Assistant in September 2024. In 2024 he earned a Master of Science (MSc) in European Economics from the College of Europe in Bruges, with a thesis on sustainability and competition policy, focused on theory, existing guidelines, and the empirical analysis of a case study. Prior to this, he obtained a Master of Science (MSc) in Global Business and Sustainability from the Rotterdam School of Management in 2023, and, in 2021, he earned a Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Economics and Business Economics with a Major in Behavioral Economics at the Erasmus School of Economics in Rotterdam. During his studies, Fabio worked as a trainee at the European Investment Bank in Luxembourg, within the Procurement Office.
During this experience he was in charge of a project of gathering, analyzing and reporting procurement data on contracts financed by the EIB in 2021. Following this, he worked as National Affairs Coordinator in Eamonn Bates Europe, a public affairs consultancy based in Brussels. In 2015, he briefly worked as an intern in Bonelli Erede in Brussels.
Francesco Ballarin is a Research Assistant at Lear. He is currently completing a Master's degree in Economics and Public Policy at the University of Bologna. Prior to joining Lear, he worked as a Research Assistant at the Department of Economics of the University of Bologna, where he gained experience in economic research. He has also interned at the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and worked as a freelance project manager for the Italian Ministry of Education and private educational organizations. His research interests include competition policy and the economics of regulation.
Gabriele Dente join Lear in 2020 and holds the position of Consultant since 2023. He is involved in several antitrust projects, as well as projects focused on policy and regulation assessment.
In 2020 he has earned a PhD in Economics from the University of Surrey, in the United Kingdom, with a thesis focusing on empirical microeconomics and causal inference. He worked on three different projects: the impact and evolution of the wage penalty associated to the overeducated status in the labour market, the effect of obtaining a Higher Education degree on Mental Health for young adults, and the Gender Pay Gap over the whole earnings distribution for young graduates. During this time, he also taught, as a teaching assistant, modules at the undergraduate level and worked as a research assistant for Professor Carol Woodhams on the "Mend the Gap: The Independent Review into Gender Pay Gaps in Medicine in England", a project commissioned by the Department of Health and Social Care.
He graduated in July 2016 from a Master of Science (MSc) in Economics at University of Rome La Sapienza. During his MSc he worked as a research assistant for Prof. Mauro Rota and Jacob Weisdorf, working on digitalization of data from the archives of the Vatican's factory.
In 2014 he earned a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration from the University of Rome La Sapienza, during which he spent one semester abroad at the Regent's College of London.
Job Titles:
- Senior Advisor
- Professor of Economics at the University of Rome Tor Vergata
Giancarlo Spagnolo is a professor of economics at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, a research fellow of SITE Stockholm School of Economics and of the Einaudi Institute of Economics and Finance (EIEF), and a research affiliate at the Centre for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). He is also a member of the Executive Committee of the European Association for Research in Industrial Economics (EARIE) and of ENCORE, Amsterdam.
Giancarlo has published in leading academic journals, such as the RAND Journal of Economics, the Journal of Economic Theory and the European Economic Review, and he is editor of the Handbook of Procurement published by Cambridge University Press (2006). He earned an MPhil from the University of Cambridge and a PhD from the Stockholm School of Economics. Before joining the University of Rome Tor Vergata he taught at the University of Mannheim and at the Stockholm School of Economics. Between 2003 and 2007 he was Head of Research at the Italian Public Procurement Agency (Consip). His main research interests are in the fields of game theory and industrial organization, corporate finance and governance, competition policy, procurement and contract theory.
Giancarlo is fluent in English and German.
Livia Baccari is a Junior Consultant at Lear. She graduated in July 2018 from a Master of Science (MSc) in Economics of Public Policy at Barcelona Graduate School of Economics (BGSE).
Before joining LEAR, she was an Intern at E.CA Economics, an economic consultancy that provides advice in the field of competition policy and regulation, where she focused mainly on damages calculation and cartel analysis.
In 2016 she earned a bachelor's degree in Economics and Social Sciences from Bocconi University, during which she spent one semester abroad at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona as an exchange student. Between her bachelor and master, she spent few months in Berlin, where she was an Intern at the Economic and Commercial Section of the Italian Embassy in Germany; after that, she did an internship at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, where she supported the implementation of development cooperation's projects in Africa.
Livia De Simone joined Lear as a Consultant in May 2022. She previously worked in London as a competition economist at the Financial Conduct Authority, the financial services regulator in the UK, where she worked on numerous projects to assess competition in the UK financial services markets. Prior to that, she worked as an economist in London for a consultancy specialised in energy demand forecasting.
In 2016 Livia earned a Master of Science (MSc) in Economics from the University of Bologna, during which she spent one semester abroad at the University of California Berkeley in the United States as an exchange student. She earned a bachelor's degree in Economics from the University of Roma Tre in 2014, during which she studied for one year abroad at the University of Edinburgh as an exchange student.
Martina Vercillo is a Junior Consultant at Lear, where she began as a Research Assistant in September 2024. In 2022, she earned a Bachelor's Degree in International Economics and Finance from Bocconi University in Milan, majoring in the Economics track. She is currently pursuing a Master of Science (MSc) in Economic and Social Sciences at the same University, with an interest in the themes of Competition Practice and Industrial Organization. During her academic journey, she had the opportunity to continuously deepen and apply her knowledge of Microeconometrics, assisting in various research projects in Applied Economics.
Mohamed Lamine DAHMANI is a Junior Consultant at Lear. At Lear, he is involved in numerous antitrust litigations, as well as policy assessment and regulation projects.
Mohamed earned a master's degree in economics from the University of Tor Vergata in 2021. His thesis focused on the estimation of damages caused by bid-rigging in scoring procurement auctions. Throughout his master's program, he cultivated a keen interest in antitrust economics.
Before joining Lear, he earned a Master of Engineering in Control System Engineering from Ecole Nationale Polytechnique. Throughout his engineering internships, he gained exposure to diverse industry sectors, including Energy, Transportation, and Automotive. Moreover, he worked as a research engineer at the Centre for the Development of Advanced Technologies (CDTA) in Algeria. In this capacity, he played a pivotal role in delivering innovative and efficient technical solutions to numerous businesses in Algeria.
Mohamed is fluent in English, French, and Arabic.
Nada Gajic is a Junior Consultant at Lear. She graduated in March 2023 from a Master of Science (MSc) in Economic and Social Sciences at Bocconi University. During her MSc, she worked as an Economic Analyst in the Center for Advanced Economic Studies (CEVES), an independent think-and-do-tank which provides consultancy services on development projects in Serbia and the region.
In 2020, she completed her Bachelor of Science in Economic and Social Sciences at Bocconi University with a thesis on the impact of emigration on labour market frictions. During her BSc, she spent one semester at Bogazici University in Istanbul.
Her main research interests are Development Economics, Industrial Organization and Competition Policy.
Nada is fluent in Serbian and English, fair in Italian and has a basic knowledge of Spanish.
Paolo Buccirossi is the Director and founder of Lear. Paolo has been working in the field of competition policy since 1994. After five years spent as an economic advisor at the Italian Competition Authority, Paolo set up Lear in 1999. Since then he has advised private clients and public institutions on a wide range of competition issues, including cartels, abuse of dominance, vertical agreements and mergers in a variety of industries, before the European Commission and several national competition authorities. Some of the companies Paolo has assisted include: Vodafone, WIND, Shell, ENI, Bayer, Roche, Procter & Gamble, Unilever and Mediaset. Moreover, Paolo has prepared witness statements in private litigation cases and assisted clients during regulatory reviews, mostly in the telecoms and media sectors. Paolo regularly acts as a consultant for the World Bank and the EBRD. In addition, he has led several research projects for the European Commission, the European Parliament and several national competition authorities in the world.
Paolo has published in several academic journals like the Journal of Public Economics, the Journal of Industrial Economics, the Review of Economics and Statistics, and the Journal of Regulatory Economics, and has been the editor of the Handbook of Antitrust Economics (MIT Press). He holds an MSc in Public Economics and a Ph.D. in Economics awarded by the University of Rome La Sapienza. Paolo has been a Visiting Scholar at George Mason University, New York University and Cambridge University. He also teaches Economics of Competition Law at the University of Rome Tor Vergata.
Paolo Meregalli is a Junior Consultant at Lear. In 2022 He earned a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration and Management from Bocconi University in Milan, and he is currently enrolled in a Master of Science (MSc) in Economic and Social Sciences at the same University.
After working as Research Assistant at Lear for six months, in 2024 he spent one semester abroad studying at Toulouse School of Economics, which gave him the chance to confront with a different and stimulating environment and to deepen his knowledge on different themes related to Economics, such as industrial organization and microeconomics.
Job Titles:
- Department of Economics, University of Bologna
Salvatore Nava is a Partner at Lear. He regularly assists clients in antitrust and litigation matters providing expert economic advice. He holds advanced degrees in Economics and Industrial Economics from the University of Rome Tor Vergata and the University of East Anglia respectively. Prior to joining Lear, Salvatore worked for two years for a competition economics consultancy based in London. He also spent four months as an external consultant for a leading UK regulator.
Salvatore has over ten years' experience in economic consulting. His experience spans proceedings before national and supra-national competition authorities, including cases of anti-competitive agreements, abuses of dominance and mergers; damages estimation in the context of competition law infringements, IP violations and contractual breaches; research projects on ex post evaluation of antitrust decisions and on digital markets; technical assistance to competition authorities in developing and emerging economies; background studies on state aid. He regularly acts as the party-appointed expert in court proceedings.
Over his consultancy career, Salvatore has worked for, among others, Allianz, Apple, Aspen, Buzzi Unicem, CMA, DG Comp, EBRD, Enel, ENI, Generali, International Paper, Lega Serie A, Mediaset, Moby, Nuovo Imaie, Opel Finance, Poste Italiane, Procter & Gamble, Rekeep, Samsung, SIAE, Trovaprezzi, UBI, Unipol, Vodafone, Wind Tre, World Bank.
Silvia Brumana joined Lear as a Consultant in June 2023. She previously worked at the UK Competition and Markets Authority, where she contributed to several Phase 1 and Phase 2 mergers, market studies and antitrust projects ranging across a variety of sectors and industries, including advertising, energy, gaming, pharmaceutical and semiconductor. Prior to that, she worked at an economic consultancy in Milan.
In 2020 Silvia got a master's in Competition and Market Regulation at the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics. Also, she earned in 2018 a joint master's degree in Economics at the University of Milan and the Université Catholique de Louvain.
Job Titles:
- Communication and Events Manager