The University of Cape Town invites you to an inaugural lecture by Professor Eftychia Nikolaidou
Professor Nikolaidou has an international reputation in the Defence and Peace Economics area with a number of contributions in this field over the last 25 years. She has also developed her research in the area of banking and finance. Professor Nikolaidou serves as a member of the editorial board of Defence and Peace Economics and the Economics of Peace and Security Journal and is a member of the US non-for-profit organisation “Economists for Peace and Security”.
Professor Nikolaidou’s journey into the Defence and Peace Economics field started when she was a graduate student in London. She was fascinated by the discussions around the secrecy and corruption that surrounds military spending. While world military spending is an important part of government spending, its economic effects have received relatively little attention. Being born and raised in Greece, she was always puzzled by the appreciable amount of defence spending allocated by her country in order to ‘deal with the Turkish threat’. Defence spending is usually justified on the basis of security concerns, but many times, security concerns are exaggerated to justify high defence budgets while countries face important developmental issues. Professor Nikolaidou decided to look into the drivers and economic effects of such spending during her PhD. This was the start of her journey into this niche area of economics.
In her research, Professor Nikolaidou attempts to answer the following research questions: What are the economic effects of defence spending? How does military expenditure affect public debt? What are the political, economic and strategic determinants of military spending? Can high military spending by countries that do not face security concerns be justified on economic grounds? Her work in this area has sought to contribute to and influence the ongoing debate on the links between military spending, public debt and economic growth both in developed and developing economies.
Date: Thursday, 10 October 2024
Time: 17:00 SAST
Venue: School of Economics Seminar Room on Level 4, School of Economics Building, Middle Campus
About our speaker
Professor Nikolaidou is a Professor of Economics at the School of Economics (SoE) at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and the current Director of the SoE. She teaches macroeconomics and banking and finance-related courses, and her research is focused on the economics of security, the determinants and economic effects of public debt, banking crises and financial development and growth.
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