Fabrizio Barca is General Director at the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance. He has previously been at the Bank of Italy as Division Chief at the Research Department, Chief of the Department of Development Policies at the Italian Treasury and President of the OECD Territorial Policies Committee. He graduated from Rome University and undertook an M.Phil. degree at the Universities of Cambridge (1978-80), as well as research activity at MIT (1989-90) and Stanford (1994). He had appointments at the Universities of Bocconi, Modena, Paris (SPO), Siena, Rome and Parma, where he taught economic development, corporate finance and Italian economic history. His works include papers and books on the theory of the firm, evidence on SMEs, corporate governance, the history of Italian capitalism and regional policy. In April 2009 he wrote the independent Report for the European Commission “An Agenda for a reformed cohesion policy.