Dr Olga Christodoulaki

Dr Olga Christodoulaki

Visiting Fellow

Department of Economic History

Languages
English, Greek, Spanish
Key Expertise
Monetary/Financial History; Central Banking; Public Finance/Debt

About me

Dr Christodoulaki holds a PhD and an MSc from the Economic History Department (LSE), and a BSc in Economics from the Department of Economics (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens).

Her doctoral thesis is entitled The origins of central banking in Greece)

Dr Christodoulaki's current research includes:

The Reichsbank and Occupied Greece during the Second World War

This project which is carried out jointly with Professor Christopher Kopper is a sub-set of a broader initiative examining the history of the Reichsbank, the Bank deutscher Länder and finally the Bundesbank. It is financed by the Bundesbank and convened by Professors Albrecht Ritschl and Magnus Brechtken.

Public debt restructuring in Greece in 1898: lessons for today

In 1898, five years after a Greek government default, a debt compromise was achieved providing for the restructuring of both internal and external sovereign debt. This work aims to shed light on why the 1898 debt restructuring episode is thought to have been successful whilst by contrast, the sustainability of the current Greek public debt has been questioned even after the most recent sovereign debt relief granted by its Eurozone counterparts in June 2018. In addition, it asks questions about the effects that debt readjustment had on the Greek government cost of borrowing and on the banking sector in the late nineteenth century as opposed to the current economic crisis.

Did Greece genuinely introduce either of the Gold, or Gold Exchange, Standards in 1910?

This research provides a new perspective on simplified assertions in the literature that Greece adopted either the Gold Standard or Gold Exchange Standard in 1910. It sheds light on the origins of the 1910 monetary arrangement in Greece and its evolution and argues that the National Bank, a privately owned bank of issue, tried to avoid ‘the golden fetters’ in 1910. In fact, its sub-governor promoted a monetary arrangement which allowed the National Bank, a privately owned bank of issue, to increase the banknotes in circulation on certain conditions whilst at the same time maintaining the external value of the drachma at its Latin Monetary Union parity.

Selected publications

  • ‘A Reflection of History: Fluctuations in Greek Sovereign Risk between 1914 and 1929’ with Haeran Cho & Piotr Fryzlewicz.  European Review of Economic History, 16/4, 2012, pp. 550-71.
  • ‘Industrial Growth in Greece between the Wars: A New Perspective’.  European Review of Economic History, 5/1, 2001, pp. 61-89.

Expertise Details

Monetary and Financial History; Evolution of Central Banking; Public Finance; Public Debt; Economic History