Christopher A. Hartwell

Member-at-large Candidate

Christopher A. Hartwell is full Professor of International Business Policy at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences and University Professor at Kozminski University in Poland. He is also former President and current fellow of CASE-Center for Social and Economic Research in Warsaw, former visiting professor at the Russian Presidential Academy for National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), and a frequent visiting scholar to the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. A trained economist, he works specifically at the nexus of politics and business in Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, Central Asia, and beyond. His research is mainly focused on institutions, institutional change, and institutional evolution, and he has focused on this topic as it relates to economic transition and economic outcomes. In addition, he has long been interested in Eurasian economic integration and has written extensively on the Eurasian Economic Union. His most recent project, published in top management and financial history journals, has been in Russian business and economic history, and in particular the effects of political violence in the 19th century on Russian firms. 

Hartwell has published over 75 peer-reviewed journal articles, is the former Editor in Chief of the journal Eastern European Economics, and has written three books and multiple book chapters utilizing a multi-disciplinary lens. His magnum opus is his book for Cambridge University Press in 2016 (Two Roads Diverge: The Transition Experience of Poland and Ukraine), examining economic outcomes as a function of institutional change over 632 years. The methodology of institutional analysis outlined in this book became a template for his next manuscript, Kazakhstan: Snow Leopard at the Crossroads, published by Routledge in 2023.  He currently is in the process of putting together his fourth book, on the economics of humor in the Soviet Union, examining the use of humor as resistance to a humorless system. 

Hartwell also has direct professional experience in the region. After completing his master’s in public policy at Harvard, he spent 14 years working first with the Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID) and then with the US Department of the Treasury and as a World Bank and USAID consultant throughout Eurasia. During his career, he has lived in Armenia, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Poland and has worked on development projects in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Belarus, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Lithuania. In his pre-academic life, he was involved with advising the Deputy Prime Minister of Kazakhstan on Eurasian integration and has remained involved in policy, advising the current government of Ukraine to fashion a blueprint for economic reconstruction and working with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan on bilateral investment treaties.  

Hartwell holds a BA in Political Science and Economics from the University of Pennsylvania, a PhD from the Warsaw School of Economics, and a habilitation in economics and finance from Kozminski University, in addition to his master’s in public policy. A frequent attendee and presenter at the ASEEES Annual Convention, Hartwell has also been involved as a member of the ASEEES Mentoring Program and hopes to be able to serve the organization further as a member of the Board. He hopes that his background as an economist but his ability to transcend disciplinary silos will make him an attractive candidate. In return, he hopes to help ASEEES through what is undoubtedly a time of turbulence and transition, focusing his energies on helping to develop the next generation of scholars working on and in Eastern Europe and Eurasia and helping to demonstrate what non-traditional career paths actually look like.