Andrea Vaccaro is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford, where he is affiliated with the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT) project, and an Associate Member of St Antony’s College.

His research interests lie at the crossroads between comparative politics and global development. Recently, he has worked on the interplay between the state, political regimes, and development, as well as COVID-19 responses, international aid, and measurement and indicators. His research has been published in academic journals such as Contemporary Politics, Development Policy Review, European Political Science, Italian Political Science Review, Journal of International Development, and Quality & Quantity, as well as media outlets such as The Conversation and The Loop.

Prior to his current role he was a Visiting Researcher at the World Institute for Development Economics Research, United Nations University (UNU-WIDER), Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Insubria, and taught a master’s level course in Theories and Policies of Economic Development at the Sapienza University of Rome.

He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Helsinki, a master’s degree in Development and International Cooperation from the Sapienza University of Rome, and a PhD in Applied Social Sciences from the Sapienza University of Rome. The title of his PhD project was ‘On the Measurement of State Capacity: Quantitative Questions and Conceptual Considerations’. During his doctoral studies, he also spent time as a Visiting PhD Fellow at UNU-WIDER and as a Visiting PhD Researcher at the Quality of Government Institute, University of Gothenburg.