The institutional economist who crystallized the 50-year debate over the Kosygin reform in a single book title
In 1977, when he defended his candidate's dissertation on the 'Asiatic mode of production,' the Academy of Social Sciences under the CPSU Central Committee, the official reviewer, submitted an evaluation whose essence was: 'This is not Marxism.'
An institutional economist of Tatar origin born in Moscow, he graduated with honours from the MSU economics faculty and taught political economy there, attracting attention with a controversial dissertation on the 'Asiatic mode of production' that the Academy of Social Sciences under the CPSU Central Committee denounced as 'not Marxism.' In 1993 he helped Kuzminov found the Higher School of Economics (HSE), serving as its first department chair, first vice-rector, and first full professor, becoming a central architect of the Russian institutional-economics school. As editor of the 2017 collective monograph 'Missed Chance or Last Valve? On the 50th Anniversary of the Kosygin Reforms of 1965,' he crystallized the polarized historiographical debate: reform as a lost opportunity for the planned economy versus its last safety valve, in a single title.
Career Timeline
- 1972Graduated MSU Economics Faculty with honours
- 1975–1993Associate professor of political economy, MSU
- 1993–1996First vice-rector & head of economic theory, HSE
- 1997–2013Ordained professor, head of institutional economics & economic analysis, HSE
- 2013–2017Head of economic theory, Financial University, Moscow
- 2017Editor, 'Missed Chance or Last Valve?'