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Profile

Dr Diego Zambiasi

Lecturer in Economics

Background


I am an economist of crime and a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Economics at Newcastle University Business School. My research focuses on the economics of crime, policing, drug markets, racial disparities in arrests, political rhetoric, and institutional enforcement. I study the rules of the game: who sets the rules, who enforces them, and who violates them.


My work examines how political incentives, institutional signals, and enforcement strategies shape criminal behaviour, compliance, and discrimination. I combine administrative microdata, spatial econometrics, regression discontinuity designs, difference-in-differences approaches, survey experiments, and modern causal inference methods to identify credible institutional effects in crime and policing contexts. My research has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals, including The Economic Journal, Journal of Economic Geography, Journal of Regional Science, Energy Economics, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, and Economic Inquiry.


At Newcastle University, I serve as Research Community Lead in Economics and as PhD Convenor.


My academic path began in philosophy, where I studied philosophy of language, formal logic, semantics, and pragmatics. This training disciplined me in structuring arguments, identifying hidden assumptions, and distinguishing between valid inference and persuasive rhetoric. It developed a habit of analytical precision—breaking complex claims into their logical components and evaluating how conclusions follow from premises.


I then obtained a Master’s degree in Economics and Management of the Public Sector, where I learned about the role of economists in evaluating which policies are effective, under what conditions, and at what cost. This training introduced me to institutional design, governance, and public policy analysis, shifting my focus from abstract normative questions to the practical functioning of state institutions.


I then completed an MSc in Economics, strengthening my training in econometrics and causal inference. This allowed me to move from conceptual analysis of institutions to empirical identification of how they operate in practice. I subsequently pursued a PhD in Economics at University College Dublin.

Research

My research lies in the economics of crime. I examine how political incentives, institutional signals, and enforcement strategies shape criminal behaviour, compliance, and discrimination.


My work contributes to several core areas of the economics of crime:


  • Political rhetoric and policing: how campaign discourse and policy framing affect arrest patterns and racial disparities in drug enforcement.
  • Drug markets and criminal markets: how enforcement pressure shifts activity across online and offline markets.
  • Gang territories and crime geography: how public disclosure of gang boundaries affects crime patterns and local behaviour.
  • Tax compliance and identity rhetoric: how political identity and institutional trust shape rule-breaking and compliance decisions.
  • Sanction evasion and tax havens: how offshore financial structures enable the circumvention of economic sanctions.
  • Migration enforcement and institutional outsourcing: how governments externalise border enforcement and the consequences for institutional accountability.



Methodologically, I use large-scale administrative microdata, spatial econometrics, regression discontinuity designs, difference-in-differences strategies, survey experiments, and modern causal inference tools. My work is empirical and policy-relevant, with a focus on identifying credible causal effects in crime, policing, and enforcement settings.

Teaching

tor: Barbara Eberth

I teach Statistics and Econometrics at undergraduate and postgraduate level, with a focus on causal inference and applied microeconometric methods for crime and public policy analysis.


I teach:


• Statistics for Economics

• Applied Econometrics

• MSc Econometrics

• Undergraduate and MSc Dissertations


I led the restructuring of the software framework used in quantitative teaching at Newcastle University Business School, overseeing the transition toward R as a core platform for statistics and econometrics. This reform aligned undergraduate and postgraduate training with contemporary empirical research standards and labour market demand in data analysis, programming, and reproducible research.


My teaching emphasises the systematic integration of data into economics education. Students work with real-world datasets, and interpret empirical results in policy-relevant contexts. Quantitative methods are embedded across modules so that data analysis and empirical reasoning form a central component of economics training rather than a standalone technical skill.


I supervise undergraduate, MSc, and PhD research in the economics of crime/

Publications