Abstract

Kyriakos Varvaressos is one of the most interesting economists and economic policy-makers of 20th century Greece. A professor and member of the Academy of Athens, Finance Minister during the default of 1932, Deputy Governor and later Governor of the Bank of Greece (1933-46), cabinet member in Tsouderos’s government-in-exile (1941-43), Vice-President in the Voulgaris cabinet after the war (1945) and economic advisor to the Plastiras Government in 1952, when he wrote his famous Report on the Economic Problem of Greece, Varvaressos is present in every key economic development of his era. 
What is more, he took part in all major international economic meetings, from the 1919 Paris peace conference to the 1944 Bretton Woods conference. He negotiated Greek debt, Greece’s inter-war clearing arrangements, post-war aid and the architecture of international monetary relations. He gained a reputation for his intellectual acumen as a technocrat and his skill as a negotiator. In 1946, he capitalized on this reputation to become elected to the first Board of Directors of the World Bank, in Washington, where he remained until his death, in 1957.

Using the recent publication of the Varvaressos biography by the Bank of Greece as a springboard, the author shall present the findings of a research project that spanned many years and archives, aiming not only to trace the life of an economist but to interpret – through that very life – key events, policy dilemmas and economic decisions. Thus, the biography aims to complement, if not also to challenge, our understanding of important events in recent Greek economic history.
 

Time and place: Monday 26.2.2018, 16:00-19:00, National Hellenic Research Foundation (48, Vas. Konstantinou av., Athens, groundfloor), metro "Evangelismos" or bus station "NHRF".