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Research Interests

I am a social scientist with a strong interest for the formal analysis of population dynamics and demographic processes.

More specifically, I have been working on two main areas of research: the relationships between Populations and their Environment, and the Interaction of Demography and Infectious Diseases.

Population and Environment

I have always been interested in environmental issues. When I was an undergraduate student I had the opportunity to do an internship at the Montreal Protocol Branch of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) in Vienna. That experience spurred my desire to use quantitative methods to better understand the impact of humans on their environment.
I wrote my undergraduate thesis on the effect of population and economic dynamics on carbon dioxide emissions in the United States. The main contribution of the thesis is a model where I use mathematical tools of quantitative finance to address the problem of cost valuation and decision under risk in the context of carbon dioxide emissions.

More recently, I focused on the role of changing population age structure, and in particular population aging, on carbon dioxide emissions. I gave a methodological contribution to the field, by proposing a generalization of the IPAT equation to a multi-sector economy with an age-structured population, and by estimating the age-specific profile of carbon dioxide emissions for the United States.

Selected Publications and Presentations

Zagheni, E. (Forthcoming) The Leverage of Demographic Dynamics on Carbon Dioxide Emissions. Does Age Structure Matter? Demography [PDF]

Zagheni E. and Billari F.C. (2007) A Cost Valuation Model Based on a Stochastic Representation of the IPAT Equation. Population and Environment 29(2):68-82. [Abstract]

An IPAT-type Model of Environmental Impact Based on Stochastic Differential Equations, Presentation at the Population Association of America Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, March 30 2006. [Slides]

Demography and Infectious Diseases

Upon completing my undergraduate studies at Bocconi University, I got involved in POLYMOD, a project funded by the European Union with the goal of improving Public Health Policy through modelling and economic evaluation of interventions for the control of infectious diseases.

My main contribution to the project has been the development of an approach to measure social contact patterns from Time Use data. In this area of research, I am now actively engaged into developing methods to combine existing data sources that potentially give information on social mixing patterns. I am also working on modelling the effect of demographic dynamics such as aging, migration and travel behaviors on the spread of close-contact infectious diseases.

As part of my dissertation, I am now working on the estimation and forecast of the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on orphanhood probabilities and kinship resources in Zimbabwe. The orphanhood problem in Zimbabwe has become extremely serious with the onset of the epidemic. To adequately address the crisis of care, it is important to forecast the number of orphans and the kinship resources that will be available to them. In my work, I use both formal demography and micro-simulation based on SOCSIM, to evaluate the evolution over time of kinship resources available to orphans in Zimbabwe.

Selected Publications and Presentations

Zagheni E., Billari F.C., Manfredi P., Melegaro A., Mossong J. and Edmunds J.W. 2008. Using Time Use Data to Parameterize Models for the Spread of Close-contact Infectious Diseases. American Journal of Epidemiology 168(9):1082-1090. [Abstract]

Using Time Use Data to Parameterize Models for the Spread of Close-contact Infectious Diseases. Presentation at the POLYMOD Workshop: Estimating Contact Patterns and their Implications for Infectious Disease Modelling, Antwerp, Belgium, June 9 2008. [Slides]

Macroeconomic Consequences of Population Aging

While working on the effect of changing population age structure on levels of consumption expenditure and associated carbon emissions, I got interested in the evaluation of macroeconomic consequences of population aging.

I am currently engaged into the formation of a country team for Italy for the National Transfer Accounts Project, a collaborative effort to measure intergenerational transfers, and to analyze and interpret macroeconomic aspects of population aging around the world.

Selected Publications and Presentations

Some Preliminary Ideas for National Transfer Accounts for Italy. Presentation at the Sixth Meeting of the Working Group on Macroeconomic Aspects of Intergenerational Transfers - National Transfer Accounts Project, UC Berkeley, Jan 10 2009. [Slides]