Beniamino "Nino" Andreatta (11 August 1928 – 26 March 2007) was an Italian economist and politician. He was a member of Christian Democrat, and one of the founders of the Italian People's Party in 1994 and of the Olive Tree coalition in 1996. Early life and career At the Liceo Classico Giovanni Prati di Trento was a school friend of Giorgio Grigolli, later President of the Autonomous Province of Trento. After graduating in law from University of Padua in 1950, receiving the award for "best graduate of the year", he later completed his studies in economics at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan, and as a visiting scholar at Cambridge. In 1961, after his marriage to his wife Giana, he went to India on behalf of MIT, as a consultant to the Planning Commission of the government of Jawaharlal Nehru. The following year he became a full professor. During his academic career he taught at the Catholic University of Milan as a volunteer assistant, and at the Universities of Urbino, Trento (in 1968, during the student protests) and Bologna. In Bologna founded the Institute of Economics and the Faculty of Political Sciences. Among his students and collaborators many brilliant economists, including Romano Prodi that from 1963 became his assistant. He had a long association with Bruno Kessler, president of the Province of Trento from 1960 to 1974, on the topic of autonomy. In 1972 he was among the founders, with Paul Sylos Labini, of the University of Calabria in Rende (province of Cosenza), a campus on the Anglo-Saxon model to stimulate the growth of the South. In 1974 Andreatta founded in Bologna "Prometeia", an association to analyze the Italian economy, followed in 1976 by Agenzia di Ricerche e Legislazione» di Roma (Arel), with Ferrante Pierantoni, and others, a cross-party group of intellectuals, politicians and entrepreneurs dedicated to the debate on political and economic issues. Entry into politics and experience Thanks to the results achieved in the academia, in the 1960s he became economic adviser to Aldo Moro, coming into contact with the group of economists, including Giuliano Amato, Francesco Forte, Siro Lombardini, Giorgio Ruffolo, Franco Momigliano and Alessandro Pizzorno, who then gravitated around the Socialist deputy Antonio Giolitti. The proximity to Aldo Moro favored his political rise within the Christian Democrats, and from 1976 to 1992 was a member of Parliament for the Christian Democrats (DC). He held