Michelangelo Vasta is professor of Economic History at the Department of Economics and Statistics of the University of Siena. He studied economic history, history of science and economics at the University of Oxford, where he received his D.Phil. His main fields of interest are: economics of innovation in the long run perspective, institutions and economic performance, the economic history of living standard, entrepreneurship and trade. He pays particular attention to historical dataset and quantitative methods. He has published extensively in the major economic history and business history journals.