Draghi, Mario
[key], 1947–, Italian economist and government and international
official, b.
Rome, grad. Sapienza Univ. of Rome (1970), Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (Ph.D., 1977). From 1975 to 1981 he was a professor
of economics at the universities of Trento, Padua, and Venice. He then
served as executive director (1984–90) of the World Bank and as a
professor at the Univ. of Florence (1981–91). In the subsequent
decade Draghi was director general of the Italian treasury, and his
reduction of Italy's debt and other reforms of Italy's economy won him the
nickname “Super Mario.” He was in the private sector as
managing director (2002–5) of Goldman Sachs International before
becoming (2006–11) governor of Italy's central bank and,
concurrently, chairman of the international Financial Stability Board. In
2011 Draghi was appointed to succeed Jean-Claude Trichet as president of the European
Central Bank (ECB), which sets monetary policy for 17-nation eurozone (see
European Monetary
System). Under his leadership the ECB cut the zone's
benchmark interest rate, extended low-interest loans to large banks,
established a liquidity program to encourage bank lending, urged political
action to preserve the euro amid an ongoing debt crisis, and increasingly
emphasized reducing high unemployment, improving the European banking
system, and other issues in addition to the ECB's mandate to control
inflation. He stepped down as ECB president in 2019. In 2021, Italy’s
president, Sergio Mattarella, invited Draghi to form a new government,
replacing Prime Minsiter Giuseppe Conte.
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