Abel Aganbegyan

Abel Aganbegyan ( _ru. Абе́л Гезе́вич Аганбегя́н) is a Soviet Economist economist of Armenian descent.

He was born on October 8, 1932 in Tiflis, Soviet Union (now Tbilisi, Georgia), son of senior CPSU official. Upon graduating Moscow State Economical Institute in 1956 he was employed by Soviet government structure responsible for salary policy in the economy. In 1961 he left the official work and started his scientific career. He became an employee of new-created scientific institute in Novosibirsk, that was quickly filling by young and ambitious persons from Moscow. Aganbegyan himself became an Academy member in 1963 (full member in 1974) and the head of the institute in 1964. He was just 32 year old and had only one published book.

In late 1980s he was one of Mikhail Gorbachev's chief economic advisers and among the first Soviet economists to voice the need for a restructuring of the economic and business infrastructure of the Soviet Union. His ideas were presented in a number of half-propagandisic works. In this period he (as an Armenian) was a strong public supporter of Armenia in Karabakh conflict although as an state official he was obliged to keep the neutrality.

He is the rector of the Academy of the National Economy in Moscow. Aganbegyan is notorius with recieving around 100 mln dollars in 1989 for construction of a new building for this institute. The funds somehow disappeared in 1995 and the building was never completed. However, all the responsibility was laid on ineffective construction management, the debts were paid from the state budget in early 2000s.

In 1990s Aganbegyan was suspected in relations with Armenian mafia in Moscow, as well as in Soviet times he was a strong lobbist of interest of Armenian burocracy in state organizations.