Miranda Xafa (Greek: Μιράντα Ξαφά, pronounced [miˈranda ksaˈfa]) is a Greek economist, formerly Greece's representative at the IMF Executive Board and chief economic adviser to the Prime Minister of Greece, and currently CEO of an Athens-based advisory firm. She is also a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation.[1]

Education

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After graduating from the American College of Greece in 1974,[2] she enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania where she received a Master's and a Ph.D. in Economics.[3]

Career

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Xafa started working for the International Monetary Fund in Washington in 1980, where she focused on economic stabilization programs in Latin America.[4] Following the center-right New Democracy party win in the 1990 general elections in Greece, Xafa was appointed in 1991 chief economic advisor to prime minister Konstantinos Mitsotakis.[3]

Following the party's defeat in the 1993 legislative elections, Xafa worked as a financial-market analyst at Salomon Brothers/Citigroup in London, UK. In the period 2004–09, she served as a member of the board of the IMF in Washington D.C., representing countries such as Italy, Greece, and Portugal,[3] and subsequently worked as senior investment strategist and member of the advisory board of I.J. Partners in Geneva, Switzerland.[4]

She is currently CEO of an Athens-based advisory firm, and a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation.[1]

Academia

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Xafa has taught economics at the University of Pennsylvania and at Princeton University. She has authored articles on international finance, the Latin American debt crisis, European monetary unification.[3] and sovereign debt restructuring. She is currently a senior scholar at the Center for International Governance Innovation, where she focuses on the Eurozone economy.[1]

Views

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Xafa supports the austerity measures undertaken by various governments in Greece and the reform and financial assistance program agreed between Greece and the troika.[5] She is a supply sider.[6][7][8]

She has publicly denounced the "magician's tricks" that ostensibly "beautified" Greece's state finances and economic ratios at the time of the country joining the Eurozone,[9] as well as any attempt at Grexit.[10] She has called on Greek governments to close down the Greek state's defense manufacturing industries because "they are operating at a financial loss."[11] In the 2010s, she joined the "free market", "pro-business" Drassi ("Action") party, serving on its executive committee.[12]

Selected works

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c "Miranda Xafa". Centre for International Governance Innovation. Retrieved 20 March 2019.
  2. ^ Xafa, Miranda (Fall 2009). "Watching Over the Global Economy" (PDF). The American College of Greece Magazine. 3 (7): 40–44. Retrieved 5 July 2018.
  3. ^ a b c d "Executive Profile: Miranda Xafa Ph.D." Bloomberg. Retrieved 5 July 2018.
  4. ^ a b "International Economic Seminar". University of Rome. 23–24 June 2016. Retrieved 5 July 2018.
  5. ^ "Η διαμάχη γύρω από το έλλειμμα του 2009" [The controversy surrounding the 2009 deficit]. Huffington Post (in Greek). 20 July 2017. Retrieved 5 July 2018.
  6. ^ "Μιράντα Ξαφά: Αναπόφευκτη η περαιτέρω περικοπή των συντάξεων" [Miranda Xafa: Further cuts to pensions inevitable] (in Greek). To Pontiki. 25 November 2017. Retrieved 5 July 2018.
  7. ^ "Η Μιράντα Ξαφά απαντά λέξη προς λέξη στον Αλέξη Τσίπρα" [Miranda Xafa responds word for word to Alexis Tsipras] (in Greek). Liberal. 31 July 2017. Archived from the original on 2017-08-02. Retrieved 5 July 2018.
  8. ^ "Reality check on government's touted 'clean exit' from bailout memorandum". To Vima. 7 March 2018. Retrieved 5 July 2018.
  9. ^ Little, Allan (3 February 2012). "How 'magic' made Greek debt disappear before it joined the euro". BBC. Retrieved 5 July 2018.
  10. ^ Xafa, Miranda (18 March 2012). "Greece's exit from the Eurozone would be all pain, no gain". CEPR. Vox. Retrieved 6 July 2018. What led Greece into this mess is its ineffective, incompetent, and corrupt political establishment, which viewed politics as a means of providing favours to special interest groups in exchange for vote-buying.
  11. ^ Sfakianaki, Nikoletta (18 March 2012). "Γιαννίτσης και Ξαφά για την ελληνική οικονομία" [Yannitsis and Xafa on the Greek economy] (in Greek). Nea Kriti. Retrieved 6 July 2018.
  12. ^ "Πρόσωπα" [Persons]. Drassi (in Greek). 2013. Retrieved 5 July 2018.
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