A liberal economist who helped design the transition from a planned to a market economy
In 1968, watching Soviet tanks crush the Prague Spring, Yasin later recalled: 'It all became clear to me in 1968.'
Yevgeny Yasin was an economist who developed reform proposals for moving the late Soviet planned economy toward a market economy. As a co-author in the Shatalin group’s 500 Days programme, he helped formulate a blueprint for rapid market transition, then worked in the reforming Russian state after the Soviet collapse. As Yeltsin’s economy minister, he represented the liberal reform line while confronting disputes over the transition’s social costs and the state’s capacity. He later shaped economic policy education and public debate through the Higher School of Economics and the Liberal Mission Foundation.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1957Graduated from the Odesa Institute of Hydraulic Engineering; bridge-construction engineer
- 1963Graduated from Moscow State University, Faculty of Economics
- 1964–1973Head of department and laboratory at the Research Institute of the Central Statistical Administration
- 1973–1989Headed a laboratory at the Central Institute of Economics and Mathematics, USSR Academy of Sciences
- 1989–1991Department head at the USSR Council of Ministers’ State Commission on Economic Reform; co-author of the 500 Days programme
- 1994–1997Minister of Economy of the Russian Federation
- 1998–2021Academic supervisor of the Higher School of Economics
- 2000–2019President of the Liberal Mission Foundation
Related historical events
The 500 Days programme and a proposed Soviet transition to a market economy
In 1989–1990, Yasin took part in drafting the “500 Days” programme to move the Soviet planned economy toward a market economy. Within the reform project led by Grigory Yavlinsky, Yasin helped organize measures by economic area, including finance, material supply and pricing, and to set out their implementation in sequence. In Yavlinsky’s retrospective account, after an initial plan had been reviewed, the group recast it to specify the responsibilities of ministries and the State Bank, subsequent steps and alternative options; the document was reorganized by around the summer of 1990. The plan envisaged making private property a foundation of the economy and proceeding by stages, using the first roughly eighteen months to establish new rules and institutions while avoiding shocks such as a sharp rise in prices, mass unemployment and falling living standards. It expected a full transformation to take several more years. These were the programme’s aims as presented in Yavlinsky’s retrospective, not guaranteed outcomes. The programme was not implemented. A later account by the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Center describes the effort as overtaken by the Soviet political and economic crisis, and TASS likewise records that the 500 Days plan was never realized.