Konstantinos Bivolaris
Konstantinos is a Financial Economics Assistant Manager at KPMG.
Why did you choose to study economics?
I found Economics to be the most interesting subject in high school. I really enjoyed studying about how people, businesses, or governments make decisions under different conditions.
Economic policy and regulation were also fairly big topics in the news in Greece during my high school years due to the impact of the 2008-09 global financial crisis. I was keen to understand more about Economics and to hopefully help improve people’s lives in some way in the future.
How would you describe economics?
Economics studies how individuals, firms and governments make decisions, taking into account that resources, such as money, time and information, are limited. It also tries to understand the impact that decisions have.
Since Economics looks at decisions, it can be applied to everything. For example, both a decision on whether to take out a mortgage to buy a house or a decision on how to utilise your time in a day can be looked at from an economic perspective.
Overall, Economics is a broad discipline which has the appeal, in my view, of combining history, politics, psychology, and sociology.
If you had a time machine and could meet your 16-year-old self, what advice would you give them?
When I went abroad to do my undergraduate degree, I was very focused on doing well academically, sometimes to the exclusion of doing other activities. So, I would probably say to my younger self to study hard but to not let that prevent me from engaging actively in other extra-curricular activities.
What is your favourite part of economics?
Analysing economic data with the purpose of empirically testing hypotheses regarding interesting questions. I also find it interesting to try to understand and explain the outcomes from an analysis.
Is there anything you would do differently if you had the chance?
There’s probably a long list of things. However, one thing I would do differently is not worry so much about everything. I would try to take on new challenges and more responsibility whenever I had the opportunity to do so. I find that a lot of my valuable experiences have come from doing exactly that.