Anders Åslund has been deeply engaged in Ukraine since 1985. He boldly predicted the fall of the Soviet communist system in his Gorbachev’s Struggle for Economic Reform (1989). He served as an economic adviser to the Ukrainian government from 1994 until 1997. He was one of the founders of the Kyiv School of Economics. In 2004 he cochaired a United Nations Blue Ribbon Commission for Ukraine, Proposals for the President: A New Wave of Reform. He is the author of nine books, including Russia’s Capitalist Revolution: Why Market Reform Succeeded and Democracy Failed (2007), which was named a Choice Outstanding Academic title for 2008, and How Capitalism Was Built: the Transformation of Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia (2007), which the Economist magazine named one of the best books of the year in 2007. He coedited Economic Reform in Ukraine: the Unfinished Agenda (2000) and Revolution in Orange (2006). Dr. Åslund joined the Peterson Institute for International Economics as senior fellow in 2006. He was the director of the Russian and Eurasian Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He was the founding director of the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics and professor at the Stockholm School of Economics. He earned his doctorate from the University of Oxford.. Dr. Aslund will be discussing his forthcoming book How Ukraine Became a Market Economy and Democracy, to be published by the Peterson Institute in March 2009 http://bookstore.petersoninstitute.org/book-store/4273.html