Federico is assistant professor at the Institute for Economic and Social History of the University of Vienna. His research focuses on the interaction between statistics and policy-making, with a particular focus on agriculture.

His book Observing Agriculture in Early Twentieth-Century Italy: Agricultural economists and statistics (2016) describes the making of Italian agricultural statistics in the early 20th century, insisting on the negotiated and diverse nature of such statistics.

His most recent work deals the International Institute of Agriculture and international statistics of the Interwar.

Federico runs a blog dedicated to different conceptions of economic development.