COWLES FOUNDATION FOR RESEARCH IN
ECONOMICS Box 208281
COWLES FOUNDATION DISCUSSION PAPER NO. 1837 Greek Debt and American Debt: John Geanakoplos November 2011 This is the graduation speech I gave on receiving an honorary doctorate
at the University of Athens Economics and Business School. I talk about my Greek family,
about how I got interested in economics, and then how in the 1990s I came to think about
default, collateral, and leverage as the central features of the financial/macro economy,
despite their complete absence (even now) from any textbooks. Finally I suggest that the
Greek debt problem, and on a bigger scale, the American debt problem, can only be cured
when lenders are prodded to forgive. That would be better for the borrowers but also for
the lenders. |
