Active board member, and prolific writer at forefront of modern Greece
Xenophon Zolotas was born in Athens on March 26, 1904 and studied law in Athens and Paris, and economics in Leipzig. In 1928 he became a lecturer in economic policy at Athens University and later that year, professor of economics at Thessaloniki University. In 1931, he was elected professor of economics at Athens University and in 1932 he served as a member of the Supreme Reconstruction Council of Greece. In 1934, Zolotas headed the Greek delegation to the Economic Council of the Entente Balcanique, and in 1936-40 he was chairman of the board of the Agricultural Bank. In 1941, he was a founding member of the Socialist Union and in 1944 was appointed joint governor of the Bank of Greece. Zolotas was a board member of the UNRRA Council in 1946, director of the International Monetary Fund for Greece, 1946-67, and from 1948 to 1953 a member of the Greek delegation to the United Nations General Assembly. From 1949 to 1953 he was a delegate to the Economic Commission for Europe. In 1952, Zolotas was elected to the Athens Academy. From 1955 to 1967, he was governor of the Bank of Greece. In 1968, he resigned from the chair of economics in the Law School of Athens University, to demonstrate his opposition to the dictatorship. In 1974, after the fall of the junta, he was reappointed governor of the Bank of Greece, where he remained until 1981. He was caretaker minister of coordination in 1952 and again for four months in 1974 in the National Unity government of Constantine Karamanlis. Zolotas became prime minister on November 23, 1989 at the head of an all-party government when the November 5 elections failed to produce an outright winner. The government stayed in power until February 12, 1990, when the parties withdrew their deputies and Zolotas continued with caretaker ministers until the April 8 elections. Zolotas wrote numerous books, chiefly on economics, many of which have been translated into other languages. They include «The Quantity Theory of Money and Price Fluctuations» (1927), «Theories of Exchange» (1927), «Currency and Exchange Phenomena in Greece» 1910-1927» (1928), «Recent Trends in Theoretical Social Economics» (1929), «Monetary Stability» (1929), «La question d’or et le problem monetaire» (1938), «Economic Theory» (1942), «Creative Socialism» (1944), «Reconstruction and Viability» (1948), «The Monetary Problem and the Greek Economy» (1950), «Inflationary Pressures on the Greek Economy» (1951), «The Transformation of Capitalism» (1953), «Monetary Stability and Economic Development» (1958), «The Role of Banks in a Developing Country» (1963), «Monetary Equilibrium and Economic Development» (1965), «The Gold Trap and the Dollar» (1968), «From Anarchy to International Monetary Order» (1973), «Currency and the Economy – The Problem of Balance» (1973), «The Energy Problem in Greece» (1975), «The Positive Contribution of Greece to the European Community» (1978), «The Dollar Crisis and Other Papers» (1979) and «Economic Growth and Declining Social Welfare» (1981).
