Grigory Yavlinsky

Grigory Yavlinsky, a Russian economist, opposition politician, and author, interprets the country's post-Soviet political economy from a liberal perspective. Trained at the Plekhanov Moscow Institute of the National Economy, he became associated with the 500 Days program for a rapid transition from Soviet planning to a market economy. He later helped found the Yabloko political movement and ran for the Russian presidency. The Putin System argues that personalized authoritarian rule cannot be explained by one leader alone. Yavlinsky connects it to the design of the 1990s reforms, Russia's peripheral place in the global economy, corruption, and a bureaucracy able to reproduce its own power. Columbia University Press published the English edition in 2019. The book combines his career as a practicing politician with his academic work in economics. Other publications include Incentives and Institutions and Realeconomik, extending his continuing interest in the institutional choices that shaped Russia after the Soviet collapse.