Thomas Herzfeld is director at the Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO) and head of the department Agricultural Policy. At the same time, he holds a chair in Policy and Institutions of the Agricultural Sector at the Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg. Thomas Herzfeld holds a Diploma and a PhD degree in Agricultural economics from the Christian-Albrechts-Universität in Kiel. He held further academic positions at the University of Kiel and Wageningen University (The Netherlands). His research interest focuses on the applied analysis of the behaviour of agricultural and rural households, rural development, quality of institutions, the political economy of agricultural policies, and more recently, agricultural policy aspects of the EU enlargement. The regional focus of his research covers a number of transition economies with a special past experience in China, Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine, and countries on the Balkan.

Ikuko Uochi is a Senior Economist at the Europe and Centra Asia (ECA) region of Poverty and Equity Global Practice and currently leads the Uzbekistan poverty and equity program. Prior to this position, she led the team for statistical development in the East Asia and Pacific region and worked for poverty and inequality work program for Mongolia, Myanmar, and Indonesia.