Munk Debate on Capitalism - Interview with Yanis Varoufakis

Yanis Varoufakis is a Greek politician, economist and academic. He sits as a member of parliament for the MeRA 25, a left-wing party he launched in 2018 and that is affiliated with the Democracy in Europe 2025 movement. He served as Minister of Finance of Greece in 2015, as a member of the Syriza party, resigning after failing to reach an agreement with the country’s creditors during the Greek government debt crisis. He was also economic advisor to George Papandreou, then Leader of the Opposition, from 2004 to 2006.

Varoufakis grew up in Greece and was six years old at the time of the military coup in 1967. He moved to the United Kingdom for his postsecondary studies, attending the University of Essex and the University of Birmingham. He holds a PhD in economics, and has taught economics and econometrics at the University of Essex and the University of East Anglia. He was a Fellow at the University of Cambridge, lectured in economics at the University of Sydney and was a professor of economic theory at the University of Athens. He has also taught as a visiting professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.

Varoufakis has authored several books on game theory, microeconomics and macroeconomics