János Gács a graduate from Karl Marx University of Economics, Budapest (1973), received his Candidate of Economics (Ph.D.) title at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1982. He was associated with the KOPINT-DATORG research institute in Budapest (1973-2002) and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg, Austria (1991-2002). Currently he is Senior Researcher at the Institute. Gács has been co-editor and co-author of several books, and author of numerous articles in professional journals. The themes of his research were the following: planners’ behavior, the shortage phenomena in centrally planned economies, liberalization of trade and trade policy options in reformed centrally planned economies, transition economies and developing countries, various macroeconomic issues related to the economic transition in former communist economies, and the progress of accession to the EU. In recent years he has been leader and participant of numerous international collaborative research projects dealing with topical issues of the transition economies, the enlargement of the European Union, and the cohesion process in the EU. He also served as consultant to international organizations (such as the European Commission, the World Bank) and various governments.