Chief Economist Erik Berglof has been awarded the prestigious International Leontief Medal “for contributions to economic reforms”

The medal, named in honour of the late Nobel prize-winning Russian-American economist Wassily Leontief, was granted in recognition of Erik’s “outstanding achievements in economics and as a practitioner in the field of market reforms.”

 

Established in 2005, the medal is given annually “to outstanding Russian and international scholars and specialists who contribute personally to the development of economic science, creation of effective institutions of market economy, and conditions for sustainable economic growth.”  

 

A statement from the Leontief Centre, a leading social and economic think-tank in Russia that awards the medal in St Petersburg, cites Erik’s role as founder and president of the Centre for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR) – now part of the New Economic School in Moscow, a leading research-based think tank – along with Erik’s efforts to help tackle Russia’s economic challenges. “Berglof addresses Russian economic problems...often in collaboration with the leading Russian economists,” the citation said. Erik’s published collaborations include The New Political Economy of Russia (MIT Press 2003) with Ksenia Yudaeva and Changing Russian Values (Palgrave Macmillan 2008) with Sergei Guriev.

Past international Leontief medal winners include Nobel Laureates Laurence Klein and Robert Solow as well as Jeffrey Sachs, Charles Wyplosz, Janos Kornai and Andrei Shleifer. Past Russian medal winners include Yegor Gaidar,  German Gref, and Alexei Kudrin – who was on this year’s selection committee. The 2013 Russian medal winner is Professor Revold Entov of The Gaidar Institute and the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. The medals will be awarded at the Mikhalovsky Castle in St Petersburg on 16 February.

 

Erik joined the EBRD in 2006. He was previously the director of the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics and a professor at the Stockholm School of Economics.