Kalman Mizsei

Kalman Mizsei earned his Master's and Doctoral degrees in Economics from what is known today as Corvinus University of Budapest. His studies focused on analysis of reform in Poland and Hungary. Specifically, his Master's degree centered on reform debates in Poland and Hungary in the 1950s, while his Doctoral studies focused more extensively on Polish reform efforts during the whole communist era. With these qualifications, Kalman Mizsei has taken his expertise to influential locations.

From 1979 to 1990, Mr. Mizsei worked at the Institute for World Economics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, in the last two years serving as its Deputy Director when he managed the Department for Socialist countries. His responsibilities during the 1980s included analyzing Poland's economic and political crisis and studying the Eastern European communist economic and political systems. He also wrote numerous publications aimed at helping the Hungarian public develop a deeper understanding of the nature of the communist economies and political order.

In 1990, Kalman Mizsei worked with Professor Jeffrey Sachs and a team of others in advising the Polish and Slovenian governments concerning their early economic reforms. In addition, because Slovenia was a brand new state at the time, he and his team were instrumental in state building. Also in 1990, Kalman Mizsei served as advisor to the President of the Hungarian National Bank. In this role, he wrote a memo regarding a sensitive issue with the International Monetary Fund that convinced the Prime Minister of Hungary not to ask for debt relief as it would have essentially cost more than paying down the debt itself.

When Mr. Mizsei is not influencing the economies of Eastern Europe, he enjoys soccer and travel. He also takes interest in different cultures, which has led him to be fluent in several languages besides his native Hungarian. He speaks English, Polish, Russian, German, and has an intermediate knowledge of French and Romanian.