Dr. Matteo CALABRESE

Matteo Calabrese is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Luxembourg, within the C²DH, where he is part of the DIGSHELL project led by Benoît Majerus.

His research focuses on the historical development of offshore financial centres, investment funds, and financial networks in small states (e.g., Luxembourg, Monaco, Tangier, etc.). Calabrese’s work combines archival research with quantitative methods to analyse the evolution of financial capitalism and its institutional foundations. He has published in leading journals including Business History Review, Contemporary European History, and Historical Methods, and is co-author of the book Innovation and Economic Development in Eurasia, 500 BCE–Present (Frontiers in Economic History, Springer Nature, 2025).

He has received a number of research grants/awards, including as team member in the ERC Advanced Grant project “DIGSHELL”, the Kaufman Research Fellowship Grant (2024), a Postdoctoral Research Grant at Bocconi University, and the S.T.R.A. Research Grant Award from Taiwan’s Ministry of Education (2022).

Before joining the University of Luxembourg, Calabrese was Research Associate and Teaching Fellow at the Otto-Suhr-Institut für Politikwissenschaft, Freie Universität Berlin, and Lecturer of Business History at the Department of Management “Valter Cantino”, University of Turin. He was previously Postdoctoral Researcher at Bocconi University in Milan. He has held visiting fellowships at Sciences Po (Paris), the International Institute of Social History (Amsterdam), and National Cheng-Chi University (Taipei)

Calabrese holds a PhD in History from the University of Luxembourg. He completed a Research Master in History (cum laude) at the University of Leiden and an MSc in Economics at the University of Utrecht.