| Panicos Demetriades | |
| Birth Date: | 19 January 1959 |
| Nationality: | Cypriot |
| Birth Place: | Limassol, Cyprus |
| Office: | Governor of the Central Bank of Cyprus |
| Term Start: | 3 May 2012 |
| Term End: | 10 April 2014 |
| Predecessor: | Athanasios Orphanides |
| Successor: | Chrystalla Georghadji |
| Field: | Financial economics |
| Contributions: | Finance and growth, public and private capital and productivity. |
| Awards: | Stevenson Prize in Economics |
Panicos Onisiphorou Demetriades (Greek, Modern (1453-);: Πανίκος Ονησιφόρου Δημητριάδης; born 19 January 1959 in Limassol, Cyprus) is a Cypriot economist and currently the Emeritus Professor of Financial Economics at the University of Leicester. From 3 May 2012 to 10 April 2014, Demetriades was a European Central Bank Governing Council member and the Governor of the Central Bank of Cyprus.[1] According to RePEC he is in the top 2% of economic authors in Europe. He is the author of "A Diary of the Euro Crisis in Cyprus: Lessons for Bank Recovery and Resolution",[2] a book describing his experience has governor of the central bank of Cyprus during the banking crisis that hit the country in 2011-2013.
From 1978 to 1981, he studied economics at the where he graduated with first-class honours. He continued his studies at Essex where in 1982 he completed his MA in economics, graduating with distinction. Between 1982 and 1987 he studied for a PhD at 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 Stevenson Prize in Economics, awarded in recognition of his work on the relationship between the level and variability of inflation. In 2011, Demetriades was elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences of the United Kingdom (FAcSS).[3]
After obtaining his PhD he worked for 5 years in the Economic Research Department at the . In 1990 he left the Central Bank and joined the Department of Economics at 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. In 2000 he was appointed to his current post as Professor of Financial Economics at the .
Demetriades was appointed to a five-year term as governor of the Central Bank of Cyprus on 3 May 2012. The post involves membership of the European Central Bank's Governing Council, the independent body responsible for monetary policy in the euro area. Demetriades, resigned from this post in April 2014, following tensions with the government of Nicos Anastasiades, which was elected to handle the country's bailout in March 2013.[4] His early departure from office was viewed as a blow to central bank independence in Europe.[5]
Demetriades's academic work focuses on the relationship between finance and growth as well as the interactions between public and private capital and productivity.[6] 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.[7] 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.[8] 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.[9] 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 8,000 citations in Google Scholar.[10] According to the RePEc rankings, he is ranked among the top 1% of the world's most widely read economists as well as the top 5% of economic authors worldwide based on criteria like average rank score, number of works number of distinct works, number of citations etc.[11]