Welcome to the Spotlight Series, where we put the focus on the talented individuals who contribute to the School of Social Sciences and Philosophy here in Trinity College Dublin.
Each month, we sit down with a member of our research team to learn more about their areas of expertise, what the turning points have been in their career, and what inspires them in their daily lives.
Dr Maylis Avaro
Maylis is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics, where she works with the Center of Economic, Policy and History. She was previously the Howard S. Marks Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of History of the University of Pennsylvania, a Scientific Collaborator at the Department of Economic and Financial History at Université Libre de Bruxelles. She also held visiting positions at the Department of Economics of Rutgers University, at the Faculty of History at Oxford University and at the Bank of France. She has a PhD in International Economics and History from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva.
What is your current area of research?
I am an Economic Historian of Money and Banking. I use historical case studies to answer questions on the economics of banks and currencies. I currently work on the history of the European Monetary Snake and on the 2022 meltdown of the Terra/Luna cryptocurrencies.
What question or challenge were you setting out to address when you started this work?
I’m interested in to understand the mechanisms behind monetary crisis. In my two current projects, I study the story of failures of fixed peg.
Within the European Monetary Snake of the 1970s, European currencies failed to maintain their fixed exchange rate against the Deutschmark. Several monetary crisis pushed countries outside of the Snake. The Euro was created partly to avoid the repetition of such monetary crisis among European countries.
The Terra cryptocurrency is a stablecoin which lost its 1:1 peg against the U.S. dollar in May 2022. In both projects, I want to understand the market forces that led to the breakdown of the currency peg and how such crisis could be prevented.
Share a turning point or defining moment in your work as a philosophical researcher?
The defining moment for my entire work is the day that I met Vincent Bignon, an economic historian working at the Bank of France. I was then a M.Sc student and attended my first academic conference to get a sense of what research was. Vincent offered me to join the graduate program of the Bank. He shared with me his passion for the economic history of money and more than ten years later, we are still co-authoring papers together.
I would encourage all our students to attend conferences, workshops, ask questions to senior scholars and look into graduate programs or research internships, these are valuable experiences!
Briefly, what excites you about your research?
I really enjoy working in the archives of central banks or governments. I always feel like a detective looking for the smocking gun which would allow me to confirm my research hypothesis. I often go through rollercoasters of excitement and frustrations when turning the pages, as the archives are always incomplete, but this makes each discovery more rewarding.
What do you like to do when you are not working?
I like to sing and I have been part of chambers choirs in the past 10 years. I am now having a lot of fun with the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Staff choir at Trinity. I also joined Cantoiri, a Dublin choir whose repertoire includes some songs in Irish, a new challenge for me!
What are you currently reading?
I’m reading Sebastian Mallaby, More money than God, a deep dive on the history of the rise of hedge funds in Wall Streets since the post WWII period. It’s the perfect balance between financial history and interesting anecdotes, for example about George Soros’ most famous trades.
If you could have dinner with any historical figure, who would it be and why?
I would like to meet Charles de Gaulle. I’m writing a paper about his decision to attack the U.S. dollar hegemony in the 1960s. I would love to interview him about his motivation at the time. I would also be really interested to hear his stories on how he organized the French resistance during WWII.
What would people be surprised to find out about you?
They may find me at -50m under sea level, as I am a 3-stars trained scuba-diver and enjoy exploring the underwater world. I would be curious to know if some people practice scuba-diving in the Irish Sea!
December 2024