Dr. Vladimer Papava is a Professor of Economics at the Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, a Chief Research Associate at the Paata Gugushvili Institute of Economics, Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, and a Senior Fellow at the Rondeli Foundation—Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies.  He was the Minister of Economy of the Republic of Georgia (1994-2000), a Member of Parliament of the Republic of Georgia (2004-2008) and a Rector of the Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University (2013-2016); 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 400 publications, including works on the theoretical and applied studies of post-Communist economies, macroeconomics and economic development, geopolitics and geoeconomics of Georgia, the Caucasus and Central Eurasia. Prof. Papava holds a Degree of the Candidate of Economic Sciences from 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). He is an academician of the Georgian National Academy of Sciences (from 2013).  He was awarded Philippe Gogichaishvili Prize of the National Academy of Sciences of Georgia (2008) and State Prize of Georgia in Science and Technology (2004). 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, and Economic Reforms in Post-Communist Georgia: Twenty Years After (New York, 2012), Laffer-Keynesian Synthesis and Macroeconomic Equilibrium (New York, 2014) with Iuri Ananiashvili, Becoming European: Challenges for Georgia in the Twenty-First Century (Bloomington, 2021). His personal page is www.papava.info.