"Persona non grata"
For preserving financial stability during the world economic and financial crisis, Željko received a number of international and domestic awards.
Željko Rohatinski completed primary and secondary school in Zagreb. He graduated from the Faculty of Economics in Zagreb in 1974, where he received his doctorate in 1988 on the topic "Role, goals and methods of economic policy and the problem of deadlines". In his youth he was quiet and withdrawn. He played sports, played chess and listened to records.
He liked to spend his days reading books, especially historical ones. In addition, he would listen to records, mostly rock music.
In his professional career, Željko was a macroeconomist with a career spanning almost five decades. During it, he went through all segments of the economic profession - from analytical and research tasks to the concrete formulation of economic policies.
He worked in the financial and corporate sector, the Institute for Social Planning of the Republic of Croatia and the Zagreb Institute of Economics. But his twelve-year mandate at the head of the Croatian National Bank should be singled out in particular.
For maintaining financial stability during the world economic and financial crisis, Željko received a number of international and domestic recognitions, such as the award "The Best Central Bank Governor of the World and Europe" awarded to him by "The Banker" magazine. He also received an award for the best communicator in the crisis year of 2008 and for the most respected financial expert.
He published a number of papers and books, and his scientific career was crowned in 2017 when his book "Time and Economics: The Concept of Functional Time" was published by one of the world's most respected publishers, Palgrave Macmillan.
Rohatinski was an irreplaceable expert in the financial sector who did not do his job, but lived it with full dedication.
In his book "Persona non grata", he discussed the issue of the introduction of the euro. A respected financial expert stated that Croatia's goal should be to strengthen domestic supply in conditions of global demand. He believed that entry into the eurozone depends on the fulfillment of specific criteria, but also on Croatia's policy before entry. He wondered whether this policy would be "neutral" or "interventionist", on which the importance of preserving monetary sovereignty depends.
Because of his views, as he himself said, he was often condemned and declared an anti-globalist, populist or interventionist. He himself was aware that for many he was and remains "persona non grata".
That's why in his later days, when he gave science everything he could, he decided to dedicate himself to his favorite hobby. He would play online chess all day with opponents from the same category, unlike the various opponents he had to play with during his long and fruitful career.
