Greece and the Eurozone: Crisis Averted or Crash Test Dummies?

Event Details

Seven years after Lehman Brothers, and six years after the ripple effects crossed the Atlantic and hit European shores, Greece and the Eurozone appear to have weathered yet another crisis. Greece’s Radical Left “SYRIZA” government took power in January, promising a new approach to Greece's near-depression that would emphasize debt relief and growth. Yet eight months later — after a near default and exit from the Eurozone — Greece seems to have returned to EU-designed austerity measures in exchange for nearly $90 billion of additional emergency loans. Rather than having averted a crisis, however, many observers believe that the latest bailout will only return Greece and Europe to economic hardship. In the first Great Issues event of the 2015-16 academic year, three University of Virginia experts will discuss the background to the crisis, its implications, and the future prospects for both Greece and the European Union.

This event is open to the public. No RSVP is required.

WILLIAM ANTHOLIS is Director and CEO at the Miller Center. Previously, he served as the managing director of the Brookings Institution, as well as director of studies and as a fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, where he focused on international trade and development issues. Antholis has also worked at the White House, where he was director of international economic affairs of the National Security Council and the National Economic Council. He worked at the State Department on the policy planning staff and in the Bureau of Economic Affairs, where he was a member of the team responsible for developing responses to world financial crises. Antholis is the author of Inside Out India and China: Local Politics Go Global and the co-author, with Brookings President Strobe Talbott, of Fast Forward: Ethics and Politics in the Age of Global Warming. 

YIORGOS ALLAYANNIS is a Professor of Business Administration and Associate Dean of Darden's Global MBA for Executives (GEMBA) program. He is an expert in Corporate Finance, Risk Management and Financial Institutions. His primary research focus is on corporate risk management, corporate financial policies and international finance. Specifically, his work examines the impact of financial and operational risk management on firm valuation and risk, the valuation implications of cash flow volatility and the determinants and evolution of a firm's exchange-rate risk. His recent work explores capital structure and liquidity as a way to manage risk and improve value, corporate governance and earnings management. His research has been published in leading finance journals, such as the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, and theReview of Financial Studies.

DAVID LEBLANG Chair of the Department of Politics and J. Wilson Newman Professor of Governance at the Miller Center of Public Affairs and Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia. A specialist in political economy, Leblang has served as a consultant to the International Monetary Fund, The Directorate of Finance and Economics of the European Commission, and the Department of Defense. He is co-author of Democratic Politics and Financial Markets: Pricing Politics (2006) and more than thirty journal articles in publications including The American Political Science Review, The American Journal of Politics, International Organization, Economics and Politics, and the Journal of International Money and Finance. He has received research support from the National Science Foundation. Leblang has written on the politics of economic growth, the determinants of exchange rate policy, the causes of currency crises and the link between elections and economic expectations.