Economist of the Day

Xenephon Zolotas

Born: March 26^th, 1904

Died: June 19^th, 2004

Xenophon Zolotas was a Greek Economist who served as Prime Minister of Greece. He studied Economics at the University of Athens, and later became an Economics Professor at the Aristotle University at Thessaloniki. He held senior posts on the International Monetary fund. He was director of the Bank of Greece from 1944 to 1945, 1955-1967, and 1974 to 1981. He was a Keynesian/socialist economist, and many of his works reflected his views. He argued that Keynesianism was best following the works of Romanian mathematician Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen and the second law of thermodynamics. That is, if there is a closed system of energy, the energy within that system will increase. In his book Economic Growth and Declining Social Welfare, he argued that most modern economic growth is not in fields that make humanity better off, and so simply growing the economy will not be enough to make people happy. For example, he argued that advertisements had little use in making people happier, it only had use in making them consume more, and so with the modern economy relying more and more on advertising, humanity will not be happier even though the economy will grow. He gave two well-known speeches to the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development on September 26^th, 1957 and October 2^nd, 1959.

Notable Works: Economic Growth and Declining Social Welfare, Speculocracy and the International Monetary System: Three Lectures, International monetary issues and development policies: Selected essays and statements, Monetary Equilibrium and Economic Development