Alexandre Lamfalussy obituary
Baron Alexandre Lamfalussy, who has died aged 86, won a place in history after a long and worthy career as a high-class economist and first-rate banker of the old school, when banking was banking. As the first president of the European Monetary Institute, the forerunner of the European Central Bank, from 1993 to 1997, he was "present at the creation" and charged with making the best of an ambitious economic financial architectural project that lacked the political superstructure he knew would be needed for permanent success.
Later, so concerned was Lamfalussy about the dangers inherent in the kind of globalised free-for-all that afflicted financial markets and wider society during and after the crash, that he wrote a number of influential books and articles on the subject, continuing long after he had retired.
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