Yale conference to focus on economic issues (04/12/98)

Yale conference to focus on economic issues

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - The Yale Center for International and Area Studies will host a two-day conference on April 24 and 25 to examine the rapidly changing links between the economy and the state in today's Ukraine. Ukrainian policy-makers and Western economic experts agree that the future growth of Ukraine's economy depends upon reshaping a broad variety of political, legal and financial institutions that define the environment in which business can thrive.

Speakers will address the following topics: the changing political contest; reshaping the legal system; regulatory reform; renewing public administration; fiscal, financial and investment reform; and emerging market issues, with special attention to the agribusiness sector.

The conference will be held on two days, Friday, April 24, and Saturday, April 25, from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Yale Center for International and Area Studies, Luce Hall Auditorium, 34 Hillhouse Ave., New Haven, Conn.

Conference organizers are Robert Evenson, professor of economics and director of the Economic Growth Center, and Susan Rose-Ackerman, the Henry R. Luce Professor of Jurisprudence, Law and Political Science and co-director of the Center for Studies in Law Economics and Public Policy. Gustav Ranis, Frank Altschul Professor of International Economics and director of the Yale Center for International and Area Studies, will open the conference.

Viktor Yuschenko, chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine, will deliver the keynote address. Academic and policy experts in institutional reform, as well as prominent representatives of Ukrainian and international institutions will speak at the conference.

On Friday morning, Serhii Teriokhin, member of Parliament and co-chair of the Ukrainian Institute of Civil Society Transformation, will discuss the political system and recent elections, and Viktor Lysytskyi, advisor to the chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine, Robert Kravchuk of Indiana University, and Jaroslav Kinach of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development will examine Ukraine's evolving fiscal and financial institutions.

Alexander Pivovarsky of the Harvard Institute of International Development, and Scott A. Carlson, president and CEO of Western NIS Enterprise Fund, will consider aspects of investment in the first afternoon session, followed by a panel discussion on food system reform. Panelists will be drawn from among board members of the Ukrainian Agricultural Development Corporation (UADC), a consortium of 10 major Western firms that invest in projects in Ukraine. William G. Miller, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, will address a conference dinner at the New Haven Lawn Club on Friday evening.

On Saturday morning, Serhii Holovatyi, president of the Ukrainian Legal Foundation and former minister of justice of Ukraine, Louise Shelley of The American University, and Petter Langseth of the World Bank will focus on reform of the legal system. Bohdan Krawchenko, vice-rector of the Ukrainian Academy of Public Administration, Vira Nanivska, director of the International Center for Policy Studies, and Kempton Jenkins, chairman of the Ukraine-U.S. Business Council, will survey the interrelationship of public administration and the markets.

After lunch, regulatory reform will be the topic for Joel Turkewitz of the International Center for Policy Studies, Andrew Stone of the World Bank and Robert Westoby of Monsanto and the UADC. The conference will end with a roundtable discussion by Susan Rose-Ackerman and Stephen Holmes, professor at the New York University School of Law.

The conference is bracketed by two concerts. At 7 p.m. on Thursday, April 23, acclaimed recording artists Alexis Kochan and Julian Kytasty will perform a benefit concert of Ukrainian folk music for the Children of Chornobyl Relief Fund in Yale's Dwight Chapel, and at 8 p.m. on Saturday, April 25, the renowned Virsky Ukrainian National Dance Company takes the stage of New Haven's Palace Performing Arts Center.

Support for the conference is provided by the Chopivsky Family Foundation, Yale's Council on Russian and East European Studies, and the Yale Center for International and Area Studies.

For further information, contact the Yale-Ukraine Initiative at the Yale Center for International and Area Studies by telephone, (203) 432-3107; fax, (203) 432-5963; or e-mail, rees@yale.edu