Roberto Torrini was born in Castiglione del Lago, Italy, on 21 March 1966. In 1990, he graduated with honours in Political Science from the University of Perugia. In 1992, he obtained a Master's degree in Economics from Coripe Piemonte, and, in 1994, a Master's degree in Economics from the Université Catholique de Louvain. In 1996, he obtained a PhD in Economics from the University of Ancona.
He has been working at the Bank of Italy since 1996, and was initially assigned to the Economic Research Unit of the Genoa Branch. In 1998, he joined the Economic Research Department, where he focused on the analysis of the labour market and of the structure of the Italian economy. In the academic year 2003-04, he was a visiting scholar at the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics. From 2008 to 2011, he served as Head of the Labour Market, Households, and Income Distribution Unit of the Economic Structure and Labour Market Division of the Bank of Italy. From 2007 to 2010, he was a member of the Commission of Inquiry on Social Exclusion at the Ministry of Labour and Social Policies. Between November 2011 and February 2016, he headed the Italian National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research Institutes. After returning to the Bank of Italy in 2016, he joined the Directorate General for Economics, Statistics and Research. In September 2020, he was appointed Deputy Head of the Structural Economic Analysis Directorate, of which he became Head in June 2023.
He is the author of numerous articles and research papers on the labour market and the structure of the Italian economy, available at: https://ideas.repec.org/e/pto87.html. With Paolo Sestito, he co-authored the book Molto rumore per nulla: la parabola dell'Italia tra riforme abortite e ristagno economico, published by Amazon in 2019.
