She began studying economics at the University of Pisa and Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, where she acquired her Bachelor of Arts in 1993.
[3][4] Her doctoral thesis was titled Job matching and unemployment: Applications to the UK labour market and international comparisons.
[4] Barbara Petrongolo and co-author Alan Manning analyzed search strategies of the unemployed to determine if labour markets were local or not.
As previous literatures evaluated the economy as non-overlapping segments, it did not lead to the correct conclusion of whether labour markets were local or not.
The study found that distance, which is measured using commuting cost or time, discourages workers from applying for jobs.
This paper looked at the post World War II era and how the female participation in the U.S. labour market has changed.
The researchers studied the consequences that past policies have had on female workforce participation using tools such as parental leave and other forms of family aid, beginning from the end of the 19th century.
Petrongolo and Olivetti looked at events such as industrialization and demographic transitions and how they impacted women's workforce participation.
Petrongolo and Olivetti found that by the beginning of the 21st century, most high-income nations have implemented some sort of parental leave and family benefit policies in hopes of increasing fertility and child development.