Christopher A. Pissarides 101: Who is the Famous Cypriot Economist? In this article on Zatrun.com, we will cover in detail everything you need to know about the famous Cypriot economist Christopher A. Pissarides, who our readers are curious about.
Who is Christopher A. Pissarides?
Christopher A. Pissarides is an economist born on February 20, 1948 in Nicosia, Cyprus. He comes from a Greek Orthodox family living in the village of Agros. He was educated at the Pancyprian Gymnasium in Nicosia and later received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in economics from the University of Essex in 1970 and 1971 respectively. He received his Ph.D. degree in 1973, in economics from the London School of Economics. He studied “Individual behaviour in markets with imperfect information” under the guidance of the mathematical economist Michio Morishima.
He devoted his research to the field of macroeconomics, focusing especially on issues such as labour, economic growth, and economic policy. in 2010, Peter A. Together with Diamond and Dale Mortensen, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for outstanding contributions to the analysis of markets with the theory of search frictions.
His Career Journey
Christopher A. Pissarides has held the prestigious position of Regius Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics since 1976. He also serves as a Professor of European Studies at the University of Cyprus and is the head of the Macroeconomics Center, which brings together leading economists from various institutions. During his career, Pissarides taught at the University of Southampton (1974-76). He also held various academic positions, including visiting professorships at Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley in 1979-80.
He also brought his expertise to the public sector by serving as the chairman of the National Economic Council of the Republic of Cyprus during the country’s financial crisis in 2012. In 2014, he resigned to focus on his academic studies.
In 2018, Christopher A. Pissarides co-founded the London-based research and development institute Institute for the Future of Work with Naomi Climer and Anna Thomas. The institute aims to investigate how new technologies are changing the business and employment environment. In February 2020, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis appointed Pissarides as the head of a committee tasked with preparing a long-term growth strategy for the country. Since September 2020, Pissarides has been the President of the Economic Council of the EuroAfrica Interconnector.
In June 2021, Christopher A. It was announced that Pissarides will lead a three-year collaboration between the Institute for the Future of Work, Imperial College London and Warwick Business School, funded by a £1.8 million grant from the Nuffield Foundation. This project, called the Pissarides Review of the Future of Work and Prosperity, was launched in March 2022.
His Contributions
Pissarides is famous for his contributions to the theory of search and matching, especially in studying the interactions between the labour market and macroeconomics. He helped develop the concept of the matching function, which describes the flows from unemployment to employment at a given time, and pioneered empirical research on its prediction. Pissarides also conducted research on structural change and growth.
One of his most famous articles is “Job Creation and Job Destruction in Unemployment Theory” (co-authored with Dale Mortensen), published in the Review of Economic Studies in 1994. The Mortensen-Pissarides model derived from the article has been highly influential in modern macroeconomics. One of its extensions or variations is now a fundamental part of most postgraduate economics curricula in the world.
Pissarides’ book Equilibrium Unemployment Theory, which has become a standard reference in the macroeconomics of unemployment literature, is now in its second edition and has been revised after his collaboration with Mortensen, resulting in an analysis of both internal job creation and destruction.
Awards and Honours
Christopher A. Pissarides is a distinguished economist and has received numerous awards and commendations throughout his career. He was elected a member of the Econometric Society in 1997, the British Academy in 2002 and the European Economic Association in 2005. Also, during this year, he received the IZA Award in Labor Economics jointly with Dale Mortensen.
Christopher A. Pissarides was appointed a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Economic Association in 2011 and became Vice-President of the European Economic Association the same year, becoming its President in 2011. in 2010, he was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Dale Mortensen and Peter A. Diamond, he shared the joint award for market analysis where there are search frictions.
Pissarides was awarded the Gold Medal of the Trinity College Dublin Collegiate Historical Society in 2012 for his outstanding contributions to public discourse. He received the Knight Bachelor award in 2013 for his services to the economy and was elected a member of the Athens Academy in 2015.
