Xenophon Zolotas

Xenophon Euthymiou Zolotas was a Greek economist who served as an interim non-party Prime Minister of Greece.

Life and career

Zolotas was born in Athens on 26 April 1904 to a family of goldsmiths with roots in Russia. He graduated from Rizarios Ecclesiastical School. Zolotas studied law at the University of Athens, and later studied at the Leipzig University and the University of Paris. In 1928, he became a professor of economics at the University of Athens and at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He held these posts until 1968, when he resigned in protest of the military regime which had come to power in 1967.
Zolotas was director of the Bank of Greece from 1944–1945, 1955–1967, and 1974–1981. He was also a member of the Board of Directors of UNRRA in 1946, and held senior posts in the International Monetary Fund and other international organisations from 1946 to 1981. Zolotas published many works on Greek and international economic topics. He was a Keynesian, and was active in socialist circles with his close friend, Professor Angelos Angelopoulos.
In association with his work in international economics, he gave two speeches at the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which, in his words, " with the exception of articles and prepositions only Greek words", to demonstrate the contribution of Greek to the English vocabulary.
When the elections of November 1989 failed to give a majority to either the PASOK party of Andreas Papandreou or the New Democracy party of Constantine Mitsotakis, Zolotas, then aged 85, agreed to become Prime Minister at head of a non-party administration until fresh elections could be held. He stepped down after the election of April 1990 which gave Mitsotakis a narrow majority.
He was a workaholic and an avid winter swimmer, making a point of swimming every morning throughout the year even into his nineties.
His book Economic Growth and Declining Social Welfare advances the idea that in modern economic growth, there is an increasing output of useless and even discomforting things, such as advertising. For that reason, he posits modern economic growth does not create conditions for further human happiness, a thesis in agreement with ideas by Richard Easterlin and Herman Daly.
Zolotas died on 10 June 2004 at the age of 100. He is buried in the First Cemetery of Athens.