The Three Academic Passions of Marco Ventoruzzo

The story of Marco Ventoruzzo's career path is the story of three love affairs. The first one is the love for Economics and Finance, which led him to graduate at Bocconi University. While studying Business and Economics, he fell in love again, with Law. "I was fascinated by the breadth of view of this all-encompassing subject. Studying Law means caring about the human being".

His new passion led him to a degree in Law at the University of Milan and to the idea of investigating the relationship between the two subjects. "I wanted to understand the economic rationale of rules of laws and vice-versa the way rules affect the economic reality". Law studies lead him to his third love: the comparative international perspective.

He received a Master of Law from Yale and became Full Professor at Bocconi University as well at Pennsylvania State University. He taught for brief periods in Japan, Germany, China, Spain, India, Chile. "We live in an interconnected world: having an international point of view is necessary to be a jurist and to teach future jurists".

As the Director of the Department of Legal Studies, Ventoruzzo faces the challenge to combine the best of Italian legal studies with a strong international leaning. He seeks to foster cooperation between different disciplines, for instance in the area of empirical legal studies that use statistical and econometric techniques to evaluate the impact of laws. "It is highly gratifying to see former students bringing their passion and values to their professional activities. Even in fields such as corporate and banking law there is a desperate need for ethical behavior. We need people who can restore trust".