[2] In A Capitalism for the People: Recapturing the Lost Genius of American Prosperity (2012), Zingales "suggests that channeling populist anger can reinvigorate the power of competition and reverse the movement toward a 'crony system'.

In 1992 he earned a Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with the completion of his thesis, titled The value of corporate control, under the supervision of James M. Poterba and Oliver Hart.

[5] In the same year he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, where he is the Robert C. McCormack Distinguished Service Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance.

[10][11] Zingales generated controversy in 2018 when he invited former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon to debate globalization and immigration at the University of Chicago against an undecided expert in the field.

[13] In 2012, he was named by Foreign Policy magazine to its list of FP Top 100 Global Thinkers, "For reminding us what conservative economics used to look like.