Costas Lapavitsas

Costas Lapavitsas (Greek: Kώστας Λαπαβίτσας) is a professor of economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London and was elected as a member of the Hellenic Parliament for the left-wing Syriza party in the January 2015 general election.[1] He subsequently defected to the Popular Unity in August 2015.[2]

Costas Lapavitsas
Kώστας Λαπαβίτσας
Costas Lapavitsas in 2013
Born (1961-01-20) 20 January 1961
Thessaloniki
NationalityGreek
InstitutionSchool of Oriental and African Studies
FieldPublic economics, political economy, financialization
School or
tradition		Marxism
Euroscepticism
Alma materLondon School of Economics
Birkbeck, University of London (PhD)
InfluencesKarl Marx, John Maynard Keynes

Academic career

In 1982, Lapavitsas obtained a master's degree at the London School of Economics, followed in 1986 by a PhD at Birkbeck College, University of London. Since 1999, he has taught Economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies, first as a lecturer and since 2008 as a professor.

Political career

Lapavitsas is known for his criticism of the modern Western financial system,[3] particularly the Greek government-debt crisis, the European debt crisis and the European Union.[4] He is also a columnist for the British newspaper The Guardian. In 2007, he founded Research on Money and Finance (RMF), an international network of political economists focusing on money, finance and the evolution of contemporary capitalism.

As early as 2011, Lapavitsas, together with some other Greek economists, has been highly eurosceptic, advocating for Greece abandoning the euro and returning to its former national currency (the drachma) as a response to the Greek government-debt crisis.[5] On 2 March 2015, Lapavitsas wrote in The Guardian that releasing Greek people from austerity and simultaneously avoiding a major falling-out with the eurozone is an impossible task for the new government of Greece.[6]

In July 2015, Lapavitsas endorsed Jeremy Corbyn's campaign in the Labour Party leadership election, saying: "If he succeeds - and I hope he does - he's exactly what Britain could do with, what the Labour Party could do with. I think that would be a very important move for the rest of Europe and for Greece. It would give a boost to the kind of thinking that would be necessary in the rest of Europe that is so sadly lacking at the moment. It would be the best thing to come out of Britain for Europe in a long time".[7]

Bibliography

Books
  • The Left Case Against the EU (Polity Press, 2018). ISBN 9781509531066
  • Marxist Monetary Theory: Collected Papers (Brill, 2017). ISBN 978-90-04-27270-5
  • (in Greek) Word for word: Writings on the Greek Crisis (Athens: Topos Press, 2014). ISBN 978-9-60499-096-2
  • Profiting Without Producing: How Finance Exploits Us All (2013). ISBN 9781781681411
  • Crisis in the Eurozone (2012). ISBN 9781844679690
  • Financialisation in Crisis (Brill, 2012). ISBN 978-90-04-20107-1
  • (in Spanish) El capitalismo financiarizado Expansión y crisis (2009). ISBN 978-84-936641-8-3
  • editor with Makoto Noguchi, Beyond Market-Driven Development (Routledge, 2004). ISBN 978-0-415-64606-2
  • Social Foundations of Markets, Money and Credit (Routledge, 2003). ISBN 978-1-13-881080-8
  • co-author with Makoto Itoh, Political Economy of Money and Finance. (London-Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998). ISBN 9780333665220

Interviews

Articles

References
  1. Helena Smith (10 January 2015). "Greek PM Samaras forced into U-turn as Syriza closes in on election victory". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 January 2015.
  2. Terms of office of Costas Lapavitsas at the Hellenic Parliament (in English)
  3. Lapavitsas, Costas (3 October 2014). "LIBOR Scandal More Than Fraud - Whole Game is Rigged". therealnews.com. Retrieved December 26, 2014.
  4. Lapavitsas, Costas (7 May 2014). "The left needs a progressive Euroscepticism to counter the EU's ills". The Guardian. Retrieved December 26, 2014.
  5. Landon Thomas Jr. (2 Nov 2011). "Whispers of Return to Drachma Grow Louder in Greek Crisis". CNBC. New York Times. Retrieved 31 December 2014.
  6. Lapavitsas, Costas (2 March 2015). "To beat austerity, Greece must break free from the euro". The Guardian. Retrieved March 6, 2015.
  7. Chan, Szu Ping (24 July 2015). "Jeremy Corbyn 'is the best thing to come out of Britain' says Greece's hard left Syriza party". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 15 July 2017.
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