I first came to know Dominique Lacoue-Labarthe when we collaborated on an EC (PHARE-ACE)) project on financial sector reform in “Transition Economies” in the early 1990s with Eric Girardin from the University of Bordeaux IV (now Montesque); Maxwell Fry, who led the team from the University of Birmingham, which included me, along with David Dickinson and Nick Horsewood; Marek Belka, who went on to become the Prime Minister of Poland and is currently President of the National Bank of Poland, and led the Polish team, which included Andrzej Raczko, Jerzy Pruski, Boguslav Grabowski and Jarek Bauc, all of whom subsequently held high positions in the fiscal or monetary policy arenas in Poland; and Mirosalav Hrnčíř, who was the adviser to the Governor of the Czech National Bank (CNB), who led the Czech team,which included Jan Klacek, head of the Institute at the CNB, and Miroslav’s mentee, Roman Matousek, who has gone on to become a Professor of Financial economics in the UK.
Others joined as what turned out to be a series of projects evolved and expanded throughout the 1990s, including Jarek Neneman (University of Lodz) and Agata Pawlowska, whose PhD was funded with an EU Marie Curie Scholarship and awarded a prize by the scheme, I supervised at the University of Birmingham and who went on to work for the World Bank, from Poland; and also colleagues from the Baltics. We met on a number of occasions in Bordeaux, as well as Birmingham, Prague, Lodz and in the Baltic capital cities…