Saturday, February 4, 2012

Lucas Papademos

Lucas Papademos (Greek: Λουκάς Παπαδήμος, Loukas Papadimos; born 11 October 1947) is a Greek economist who was appointed as Prime Minister of Greece on 11 November 2011.

Previously, he was Governor of the Bank of Greece from 1994 to 2002 and Vice President of the European Central Bank from 2002 to 2010. He was also a visiting professor of public policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a Senior Fellow at the Center for Financial Studies at the University of Frankfurt.

Education and Career
Papademos was born in Athens but his parents were from the town of Desfina in Phocis. Papademos after graduating from Athens College, attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, gaining a degree in physics in 1970, a masters degree in electrical engineering in 1972, and a doctorate in economics, in 1978.

In 1975, he worked with Franco Modigliani on the NAIRU concept, introduced under the term NIRU (non-inflationary rate of unemployment). He taught economics at Columbia University from 1975 until 1984, and then at the University of Athens from 1988 to 1993.

He has served as Senior Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston in 1980. He joined the Bank of Greece in 1985 as Chief Economist, rising to Deputy Governor in 1993 and Governor in 1994. During his time as Governor of the national bank, Papademos was involved in Greece's transition from the drachma to the euro as its national currency.

After leaving the Bank of Greece in 2002, Papademos became the Vice President to Wim Duisenberg (and then Jean-Claude Trichet) at the European Central Bank from 2002 to 2010. In 2010 he left that position to serve as an advisor to Prime Minister George Papandreou.

He has been a member of the Trilateral Commission since 1998.

He is a member of the Academy of Athens. He has published numerous articles in the fields of macroeconomic theory, the structure and functioning of financial markets, monetary analysis and policy, theory of chaos as well as on subjects concerning the economic performance, financial stability, financial instability and economic policy in the European Union. He has also delivered addresses on the Greek debt crisis.

Personal Life
Papademos has been married to Shanna Ingram - of Dutch descent - for more than 30 years. They have no children.

From : www.wikipedia.org