Panicos O. Demetriades

Panicos Demetriades
Born 19 January 1959
Nationality Cypriot
Institution Central Bank of Cyprus
Field Financial economics
School or tradition
 New Keynesian economics
Alma mater University of Cambridge (Ph.D. 1987),
University of Essex (B.A. 1981), (M.A. 1983)
Influences Frank Hahn, Hashem Pesaran, Joseph Stiglitz.
Contributions Finance and growth, public and private capital and productivity.
Awards Stephenson Prize in Economics
Information at IDEAS / RePEc

Panicos Onisiphorou Demetriades (Greek: Πανίκος Ο. Δημητριάδης; born 19 January 1959) is a Cypriot economist, who is a European Central Bank Governing Council member and the Governor of the Central Bank of Cyprus from 3 May 2012. Prior to his appointment, he was a Professor of Financial Economics at the University of Leicester.[1]

Biography

Panicos was born in Limassol, Cyprus. From 1978 to 1981, he studied economics at the University of Essex where he graduated with first-class honours. He continued his studies at Essex where in 1983 he completed his MA in economics, graduating with distinction. Between 1983 and 1987 he studied for a PhD at Cambridge University under the supervision of Frank Hahn and Hashem Pesaran. The title of his thesis was "Essays on the Costs of Inflation". During his studies at Cambridge Demetriades won the Stephenson Prize in Economics, awarded in recognition of his work on the relationship between the level and variability of inflation.

Career

After obtaining his PhD he worked for 5 years in the Economic Research Department at the Central Bank of Cyprus. In 1990 he left the Central Bank and joined the Department of Economics at Keele University where in 1996 he became Reader in Economics. In 1997 he left Keele and joined South Bank University as Professor of Financial Economics and remained there for 3 years. Since 2000 he has been Professor of Financial Economics at the University of Leicester.

He has been appointed to the position of governor of the Central Bank of Cyprus effective from 3 May 2012.[2]

Academic research

Demetriades’s academic work focuses on the relationship between finance and growth as well as the interactions between public and private capital and productivity. His early work on finance and growth challenged the view that growth in the financial system is, by itself, sufficient to deliver more economic growth and emphasised the importance of good institutions. Moreover, he has shown that, where present, the contribution of the banking sector to growth is more significant than that of equity finance through the stock market. More recent work has challenged widely held views about government owned banks by showing that, far from acting as an obstacle to growth, such banks can actually enhance both financial and economic development. His work on public capital contradicts the ‘crowding out’ argument often used by mainstream economists to justify cuts in public spending and reduce the size of government. Specifically, he shows that public investment can actually promote the productivity of the private sector and stimulate trade, employment and long run growth. In this sense, his work has a distinctly Keynesian flavour, influenced by new Keynesians such as Joseph Stiglitz. Although his work can be classified as macroeconomics, he also utilises both micro-data and micro-econometrics. His academic work has been influential, as evidenced by over 2,500 citations in Google Scholar. According to the RePEc rankings, he is in the top 2% of the world’s most widely read economists.

Apart from his academic work, Demetriades has his own blog which he set up in 2010. The blog deals with various economic policy issues especially those pertinent to the UK, Cyprus and Greece.

Selected academic articles

References

  1. ↑ Don't privatize banks too soon
  2. ↑ Poly Pantelides (29 April 2012). "Central Bank Governor officially named". Cyprus Mail. Retrieved 29 April 2012.

External links