Kuat Akizhanov is Deputy Director of the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation Institute headquartered in Urumqi, China. Prior to joining the Institute, he was Head of Economic Research Department at the Institute of Strategic Studies under the President of Kazakhstan and also served as Director of the Institute of Applied Research of Kazakhstan’s Academy of Public Administration. Akizhanov has also held several appointments at Kazakhstan’s ministries of justice, finance, labor, and social protection, as well as in the President’s Administration. In addition, he has served as a lecturer at the Higher School of Economics of KazGUU in Astana (Kazakhstan), OSCE Academy in Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan), the Institute for East European Studies of the Freie Universität Berlin (Germany), and the International Development Department of the University of Birmingham (United Kingdom).

His research interests span development economics, socio-economic inequality, developmentalism, crises and regulation, neoliberalism, and financialization in the Eurasian region. Akizhanov holds a PhD in Political Economy from the University of Bath, a master’s degree in Public Policy from the Manchester University, and a Master of Laws from the University of Virginia School of Law. His latest book is “Finance Capitalism and Income Inequality in the Contemporary Global Economy. A Comparative Study of the USA, South Korea, Argentina and Sweden”.