‘Un Amateur de Chiffres’. The economic contributions of the Italian-Belgian engineer Angelo Della Riccia (1867–1938)

Angelo Della Riccia, born in Florence on 26 August 1867 and died in Brussels on 24 October 1938, was an Italian engineer and mathematician who spent much of his life in Belgium, working for various firms in the rapidly expanding electrical sector. He became interested in economics in the 1930s. Using his knowledge as an engineer and a mathematician, he published about 25 essays and articles on topics such as business cycle analysis, inequality and natural resources. In our paper, we examine Della Riccia’s contributions to economics and explore his (lack of) influence on the profession.