Speaker: Gerald O'Driscoll, Jr.

Today the UNR Economics Club had the great honor and privilege of receiving a talk from Gerald P. O'Driscoll, Jr. about Greece, the European Union, and the future of the eurozone economy.


Gerald O'Driscoll is currently a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, and has served as the director of the Center for International Trade and Economics at the Heritage Foundation. He has also served as vice president and director of policy analysis at Citigroup, and vice president and economic advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. If you'd like to find out more about Gerald O'Driscoll, please visit http://www.cato.org/people/gerald-odriscoll.

Mr. O'Driscoll's talk today was mainly about Greece and its recent debt crisis, as well as the historical economic context of the crisis and what can be learned from Greece's difficult times. Greece, he mentioned, is currently in its 4th year of recession, with a rising 19% unemployment rate, a GDP receding by a yearly 12%, and youth unemployment at a staggering 47%. Greece's job loss has been almost entirely in the private sector, and the youth have been leaving the country in great numbers to avoid unemployment.

The Greek debt crisis, at its core, is the result of government spending exceeding tax revenue and the Greek private sector under-producing. However, according to O'Driscoll, there are a variety of other elements at play; for one, Greece gets loans for its sovereign debt at interest rate only slightly higher than that of Germany, despite a much weaker economy. Also, studies have shown that Greece's most recent governments -- both Center-Right and Leftist -- have consistently "fudged the numbers" and understated their debt.

"So what can be done?", asked some of our students. Mr. O'Driscoll laid out a series of steps that he believed could help get Greece get back on its feet. For starters, he encourages a heavy liberalization of the Greek economy, and the removal of barriers to entry that make it difficult for working-class Greeks to get to work, for example, licenses necessary to become a barber or taxi driver. The rigid economic system is stifling Greek growth. In addition, Greece's parliament must stick to the austerity and book-keeping measures put in place as conditions of the most recent loans they've received from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, to insure the stability of their present and future debt.

Mr. O'Driscoll also fielded questions and offered insight into the economies of the United States, Japan, Italy, Portugal, Peru, and Chile. All told, it was a very insightful lecture and we are all grateful for Mr. O'Driscoll's visit.

- Ariel Castro, University of Nevada, Reno Economics Club