Elena Nikolova

I am an Associate Professor at Zayed University x Minerva in the UAE (based in Mauritius). I have conducted policy work for the EBRD, World Bank, IMF, Council of Europe Development Bank, UNDP, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, AfDB, European Commission and UN ESCWA. My work has covered Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa, and I'm fluent in English, Bulgarian, Russian and Italian, and have a working knowledge of French.Previously, I was an Assistant Professor in Economics at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at University College London, and an economist at the EBRD in London, where I was also head investigator for the EBRD-World Bank Life in Transition Survey. I received my PhD from Princeton University in 2011, and my undergraduate degree from Gettysburg College in the US. Before grad school, I was an associate at Charles River Associates in Washington, DC, working on competition economics. I have published widely on gender economics, labor, social and economic development, entrepreneurship, political economy, economic history, comparative politics and democratization, and the politics and economics of development and transition.