Clara Elisabetta Mattei

Clara Elisabetta Mattei (born 1988 ) is an Italian economist and academic, specializing in the history of capitalism and the interplay between economic theories and technocratic policymaking. Since February 2025, she has served as a professor of economics and as the founding president of the Forum for Real Economic Emancipation at the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States.

Early life and education Born in the United States to Italian parents , Mattei earned her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees in philosophy from the University of Pavia. She completed a joint Ph.D. in economics at the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa and the Université de Strasbourg's École Doctorale Augustine Cournot. The work investigates the origins of austerity policies following World War I and their role as a reaction against alternatives to capitalism. The book was recognized by the Financial Times as one of the ten best economics books of 2022, has been translated into over ten languages, and received the 2023 Herbert Baxter Adams Prize from the American Historical Association.

In November 2023, Mattei released her first book written in Italian, L’economia è politica: Tutto quello che non vediamo dell’economia e che nessuno racconta, published by Fuoriscena Libri. The book was released in English by Simon & Schuster under the title Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention in 2026.

Her scholarly articles have appeared in journals such as the Cambridge Journal of Economics, the Journal of the History of Economic Thought, and the European Journal of the History of Economic Thought. Jacobin, and Il Fatto Quotidiano.

Research interests Mattei's research examines post-World War I monetary and fiscal policies and the history of economic thought.

Awards and honors

Young Scholar Award from the History of Economics Society (June 2015) for her paper "The Guardians of Capitalism. International Consensus and Fascist Technocratic Implementation of Austerity"

Selected works and publications Books

The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism, University of Chicago Press (2022). L’Economia è Politica, Fuoriscena Libri (2023). Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention, Simon & Schuster (2026).

Book chapters