Renato Brunetta was born on 15 May 1950, in Venice, Italy, the youngest of three brothers. He grew up in a poor family and his father was a peddler.[1] He attended the classical lyceum Foscarini. Brunetta once said that as a boy, he often studied classics on his own, to "reduce the social gap between him and his fellow students".[2]
On 2 July 1973, he graduated in Political and Economic Sciences at the University of Padua. His academic career began at the same University shortly after graduation. Beginning as an Assistant Professor of Theory and Development Policy and Applied Economics, he went on to focus on Labour Policy in 1977. In 1982, he joined the Department of Economic and Social Analysis of the Territory at the Luav University of Venice where he performed the role of Associate Professor of Fundamentals of Economics.
From 1991 to 1999, he was Associate Professor of Labour Economics at University of Rome Tor Vergata, where he also held the position of Professor of Political Economy until 2009.[3]
Since 1976, Brunetta has been enrolled as a freelance journalist in the Order of Journalists of Veneto. He is a columnist of Il Sole 24 Ore and Il Giornale. Moreover, he is the founder and editor of the magazine Labor – Reviews of Labor Economics and Industrial Relations, published by Wiley-Blackwell for the Center for Economic and International Studies (CEIS) of the Tor Vergata University.
Together with Vittorio Feltri, he wrote a series of Manuals of Political Conversation published by Libero. In June 2020, he briefly became a columnist for Il Riformista, a centrist and liberal newspaper directed by Piero Sansonetti, which he left in October 2020.[4]