János Köllő - Biography#

János Köllő graduated from Hungary’s (then) only school of economics at Karl Marx University, in 1977. As was usual in those times in Eastern Europe, he earned his doctoral degree (1980) and candidate’s degree (1990) by presenting and defending his dissertations and without attending a formal Ph.D. course. He accumulated his impressive knowledge of economics mostly through ‘on-the-job training’, as a full-time researcher and participant in international research projects granted by Harvard University, the World Bank, CEPR, IEWS, Phare-ACE, ILO, EU DG Employment, EBRD and several EU Framework Programs.

Apart from academic projects he also wrote reports commissioned by the World Bank, OECD, ILO and EBRD and served as expert for the UNDP and several Hungarian institutions including the Prime Minister, the Central Bank, the National Labour Centre and several ministries.

At the onset of the transition, he was actively involved in the creation of a social safety net for the unemployed. More recently, he was a key participant in a national round table initiating strategic reforms of the educational system, and also contributed to a similar initiative on pension reforms. In 2011, Köllő summarized his decade-long research on unskilled unemployment in a book, which was successfully defended as a D.Sc. thesis and earned him the highest academic title in Hungary.

Detailed CV in English: http://econ.core.hu/file/download/kollo/kollocven.pdf

Selected publications: http://econ.core.hu/file/download/kollo/kollopubeng.pdf