Gianluca Russo is a lecturer at CUNEF, Madrid. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Boston University, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the UPF, the Barcelona School of Economics and Universitat Autonoma of Barcelona. His research lies at the intersection of political economy, economic history and development economics. His work seeks to understand how the quality and evolution of institutions shape societies—why some institutional arrangements foster cohesion and prosperity, while others give rise to division and illiberalism.