Albert O. Hirschman (1915-2012) was an acclaimed and influential economist and social scientist. He taught at Columbia University and Harvard University, and he was professor of social science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. His best-known books include National Power and the Structure of Foreign Trade (1945), The Strategy of Economic Development (1958), Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States (1970), The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism Before Its Triumph (1977), Shifting Involvements: Private Interest and Public Action (1982), and The Rhetoric of Reaction: Perversity, Futility, Jeopardy (1991).

Michele Alacevich is professor of the history of economics and economic history at the University of Bologna. He is the author of Albert O. Hirschman: An Intellectual Biography (Columbia, 2021) and The Political Economy of the World Bank: The Early Years (2009), as well as coauthor of Inequality: A Short History (2018).

Pier Francesco Asso is professor of the history of economic thought and international political economy at the University of Palermo. He is the author of several books in Italian on topics such as the history of banking and twentieth-century economic thought.