Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, Georgia.

Dr. Vladimer Papava is a Rector and Professor of Economics of the Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, a Senior Fellow at the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies, a Chief Research Associate at the Paata Gugushvili Institute of Economics (Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University) and a Senior Associate Fellow of the Joint Transatlantic Research and Policy Center at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute (Johns Hopkins University-SAIS). He was the Minister of Economy of the Republic of Georgia (1994-2000) and a Member of Parliament (2004-2008) (Republic of Georgia); in 2005-2006 he was a Fulbright Fellow at the Central Asia—Caucasus Institute, The Nitze School—SAIS, Johns Hopkins University (Washington, DC). He is the author more than 300 publications including works on theoretical and applied studies of post-Communist economies and economic development of the Central Caucasus. Dr. Papava holds a Degree of the Candidate of Economic Sciences from the Central Economic-Mathematical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1982, Moscow, Russia), a Degree of the Doctor of Economic Sciences from Leningrad State University (1990, Saint-Petersburg, Russia), and Tbilisi State University (1989, Tbilisi, Georgia). His English-language publications include: Financial Globalization and Post-Communist Georgia (New York, 2003) with Vepkhia Chocheli, Splendours and Miseries of the IMF in Post-Communist Georgia (Laredo, TX, 2003), Necroeconomics: The Political Economy of Post-Communist Capitalism (New York, 2005), The Central Caucasus: Problems of Geopolitical Economy (New York, 2008) with Eldar Ismailov, Rethinking Central Eurasia (Washington, DC, 2010), also with Eldar Ismailov; and Economic Reforms in Post-Communist Georgia: Twenty Years After (New York, 2012).