ΠΑΝΕΠΙΣΤΗΜΙΟ ΠΕΙΡΑΙΩΣ
ΣΧΟΛΗ ΧΡΗΜΑΤΟΟΙΚΟΝΟΜΙΚΗΣ ΚΑΙ ΣΤΑΤΙΣΤΙΚΗΣ
 ΤΜΗΜΑ ΧΡΗΜΑΤΟΟΙΚΟΝΟΜΙΚΗΣ ΚΑΙ ΤΡΑΠΕΖΙΚΗΣ ΔΙΟΙΚΗΤΙΚΗΣ

UNIVERSITY OF PIRAEUS
SCHOOL OF FINANCE AND STATISTICS  DEPARTMENT OF BANKING AND FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT

The Department of Banking and Financial Management announces the upcoming seminar

given by internal faculty member Prof. Gikas Hardouvelis

“Economic Policy Uncertainty and the Greek Economic Crisis”

Seminar Organizers: Assist. Prof. Michail Anthropelos, Prof. George Skiadopoulos

Abstract: We use textual analysis to construct an index of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) for Greece from 1998 to 2017 as well as EPU sub-indices related to fiscal (partitioned further into debt and tax), monetary, banking, currency or Grexit, and pension policies.  Positive shocks to EPU (and to the other sub-indices) are associated with a subsequent decline in real economic activity, economic sentiment and the stock market, and a subsequent rise in unemployment and interest rates.  A historical decomposition suggests that in addition to the government fiscal balance, EPU was a key variable behind the Greek crisis, particularly during its second phase after 2014. We also find evidence that EPU tends to lead economic activity rather than vice versa.

Gikas A. Hardouvelis is Professor of Finance and Economics in the Department of Banking and Financial Management of the University of Piraeus in Greece.  He has a Ph.D. in Economics from U. C. Berkeley, and M. Sc. & B. A. degress in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University.  From June 2014 to January 2015 he was the Minister of Finance of the Hellenic Republic.

Hardouvelis is Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research in London, member of the Board of the Multinational Finance Society, member of the Academic Council of the Cyprus International Institute of Management, President of the Scholarship Committee of the Hellenic Harvard Foundation, a Trustee of Anatolia College, and member of Board of Directors and the Executive Committee of the Foundation for the Economic & Industrial Research.

In the past he served as Research Adviser to the Bank of Greece and to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and as Chief Economist of the National Bank of Greece and of Eurobank. He was a member of the Board of Directors of the Athens Derivatives Exchange and of the National Securities, S.A.  As a member of the Governing Council of the University of Peloponnese, he was responsible for setting up its Economics Department. He also served the Hellenic Republic twice as Head of the Prime Minister’s Economic Office.

His academic work extends in the fields of Finance and Macroeconomics and is published in prestigious top-ranking academic journals, including the American Economic Review, the Journal of Finance, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Monetary Economics, the Review of Financial Studies, The Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, the Review of Economics and Statistics, the Journal of Business, and other journals.