‘Understanding socialism from the outside and from the inside’ – Interview with Alberto Chilosi

Alberto Chilosi is a former Professor of Economic Policy in the Department of Economics at the University of Pisa, Italy. After obtaining a degree in Law at Pisa, he earned a scholarship to Warsaw, receiving a Diploma in Economic Planning in 1968 and a Doctorate in Economics in 1972. He has been mainly active in the area of Comparative Economics, the Economics of Socialism, and the Economics of Transition. As a chairman of the Italian Association of Comparative Economic Studies, he has cooperated to organise the founding of the European Association of Comparative Economic Studies, serving as a member of its first Executive Committee. As a Senior Associate Member of St Antony’s College, University of Oxford (UK), he has taken part in its research in the area of Economics of Eastern Europe. He has also contributed in the areas of Macroeconomics and Growth Theory. While there are numerous examples of Western scholars who have studied the socialist system from the outside, as well as Eastern scholars who have studied it from the inside, Chilosi represents a rare case of a scholar who has managed to study the system from both perspectives simultaneously.