Dr. Károly Attila Soós received his MSc economist degree in 1967 at the Karl Marx University of Economic Sciences of Budapest in 1967.
He has worked as a junior research fellow, then research fellow and senior research fellow with the Institute of Economics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences since 1967. During this time, without stopping contacts with the Institute, he also taught as professor at universities in France and the US, he was member of the Hungarian Parliament and of the Government in the 1990s. Then, in 1998-2000, he spent three years in London as member of the Board of Directors of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. He is an internationally recognised researcher of the economic systems and macroeconomic problems of Central and Eastern European countries.
Dr. Soós’ participation in the work of the Faculty of Business and Economics of the University of Pécs started at the end of the 1970s. He was appointed honorary assistent professor of the University of Pécs in 1984, and habilitated at the Faculty in 2009. From 2001 on, he has been lecturer of applied macroeconomics at the Faculty’s PhD Program of Business Administration.
Inaugural lecture
A common currency for Europe had been an old idea but when, in the early 1990s, Euroland received its final blueprint, it was largely determined by the fear of bankruptcies of member countries’ governments. According to Maastricht rules, countries entering Euroland had to have a public debt below 60% of their GDP. However, countries with debt burdens bigger than that – countries with „original sins” – also had to be admitted. Thus, for the sake of security, a condition limiting the annual public sector deficit to 3 % of the GDP was also set. Then, fiscal rules were also extended and „perfected” for countries already members of Euroland. But the violators have never been punished. And still, the rules seriously impair member countries’fiscal autonomy.
Economists – Charles Wyplosz some other colleagues – have recently designed a concept according to which the seigniorage revenue of the ECB could become the source of servicing an important fraction of outstanding public debts. This would also imply a politically acceptable way to reduce high debts to a reasonable level, i. e., to abolish the „original sin” of indebted countries. After it, any member government would only be threatened by bankruptcy if it behaved in an extremely irresponsible way. My question is whether then the system of fiscal rules should still be maintained.
Date of inauguration: 14 March 2018
