Yegor Timourovich Gaidar

Yegor Gaidar

19 March 1956 – 16 December 2009 

The founder and till December, 2009 permanent Director of IET 

Yegor Gaidar was born in Moscow on 19 March 1956 in a typical Moscow intelligentsia family, 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.

From June, 1994 till May, 2001 – the Chairman of the party "The Democratic choice of Russia".
Since 1999 on 2003 – the deputy of the State Duma from party "Union of the Right Forces" (URF), the committee-man under the budget and taxes; was the co-chairman of party "URF".

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)
  • Days of defeats and victories (1998)
  • The Russian Economy in Transition (editor-in-chief and co-author) (1999, USA – 2003)
  • Long time. Russia in the world: Essays of economic history (2005)
  • Collapse of an empire: Lessons for modern Russia (2006, USA – 2007)
  • Power and Property (2009).

 

And author of numerous papers (over 100) published in Australia, Czech Republic, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Japan, Poland, UK, USA, and by international institutions.

Yegor Gaidar was the 1996 Hitchcock Honorary Professor with University of California, Berkeley and 1997 Terry Sanford Distinguished Lecturer, Duke University.