Yegor T. Gaidar Former Acting Prime Minister, Russia "Key Risks for Global Development Stability"
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Short biography:

Born in Moscow on 19 March 1956 in Moscow in a typical Moscow intelligentsia family, Yegor Gaidar graduated from the Department  of Economics, the Moscow State University in  1978 and received his PhD in economics in 1980. After several years as a researcher, he became a journalist and became Doctor in economics in 1987.

On the threshold of reforms, in 1990, he was appointed Director of the newly established Institute for Economic Policy.

In 1991 Yegor Gaidar became Deputy Chairman of the Government of RF, in charge of  the matters of economic policy and Minister of Economy and Finance and in 1992- Acting Chairman of the Government of RF. He consequently resigned and returned to his think-tank that had become known by that time as Institute for the Economy in Transition, to join the government in 1993 as First Deputy Chairman of the Government of RF and Acting Minister of Economy of RF.

Mr. Gaidar did not abandon politics though and became a founder and the Chairman of the Democratic Choice of Russia, pro-market liberal party, and as such won elections to the first Russian Duma (Parliament) in 1993.

Between 1992- 1994 he also was Counselor on Economic Policy to the RF President but resigned in protest to the war in Chechnya.

He was back to research in 1996  while holding positions of Director of the Institute for the Economy in Transition, Chairman of the Democratic Choice of Russia party, and became Vice President of the International Democratic Union.

Mr. Gaidar initiated the establishment of the Union of Rightist Forces political party in 1998 and became its Co-Chairman.

Since 1999 through 2004 he once again was in the Parliament as an MP.

At present Mr. Gaidar is once again Director of Institute for the Economy in Transition, Co-Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Union of Rightist Forces, and Vice President of the International Democrat Union (Conservative).

Mr. Gaidar is the author of several monographs, including:

• Economic Reforms and Hierarchic Structures (1990)
• State and Evolution ( 1995, USA- 2003)
• Days of Defeat and Triumph( 1996) ( Japan -1997; USA -1999),
• Anomalies of Economic Growth (1997) (Poland- 1999)
• Selected Works (2- volume edition) (1997)
• The Russian Economy in Transition (Editor-in Chief and co-author)- (1999, USA- 2003),
• Long time (2005)
• The Fall of the Empire (2006)

And author of numerous papers (over 200) published in Australia, Czech Republic, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Japan, Poland, UK, USA, and by international institutions.

Yegor Gaidar  is the 1996 Hitchcock Honorary Professor with University of California, Berkeley and 1997 Terry Sanford Distinguished Lecturer, Duke University Mr. Gaidar is married and resides with his wife and four children in Moscow.

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Last updated: 18 Dec 2007