Stergios Skaperdas, economics professor, has been appointed to a five-year term as the Clifford S. Heinz Chair. Established in 1988 by the UC Regents, the honor recognizes an outstanding UC Irvine scholar who studies the economics of peace. Skaperdas specializes in political economics research, and he has published groundbreaking work on the  role the absence of property rights plays in creating incentives for cooperation, as well as conflict, and its implications for trade, war, organized crime, the role of the state and more. More recently, he turned his attention to the faltering economy in his home country of Greece. A paper he wrote on the country’s debt crisis was cited in more than a dozen publications – including the The New York Times, The Guardian, National Public Radio and CNN – and propelled him into the policy community as a proponent of dissolving the Eurozone. Skaperdas currently serves as associate editor of the journals Global Crime and Economics of Governance and is the co-editor of the recently published Oxford Handbook of the Economics of Peace and Conflict.