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Professor Spechler’s research field is comparative economic systems. He investigates the economies of different countries (developed capitalist, communist, emerging, and under-developed) and compares them to each other at a point in time, and to themselves over time.
His recent research has been on the transitional economies of the former Soviet bloc. He is currently using these countries to explain why some countries agree to form regional economic trading groups (blocs) and why others resist efforts to integrate their economies with a broader group.
Spechler is the only American economist working full-time on the economies of post-Soviet Central Asia. He has been a consultant for the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, the Global Development Network, USAID, and other U.S. governmental agencies. He is also Book Review Editor for Comparative Economic Studies.
His new book The Political Economy of Reform in Central Asia: Uzbekistan and Its Neighbors will be published soon by Routledge (U.K.)
Selected Publications:
- "Economic Reform in Authoritarian Uzbekistan,"Toronto Studies in Central and Inner Asia, volume 8,
forthcoming.
- "Trade, Energy, and Security in the Central Asian Arena," with Dina R. Spechler, in Ashley Tellis and
Michael Wills, eds.,Strategic Asia 2006-07: Trade, Interdependence, and Security, pp. 205-240, National
Bureau of Asian Research, 2006.
- "Central Asia on the Edge of Globalization," Challenge,
Vol. 47, no. 4, July-August 2004, pp. 62-77.
- "The Uzbek Paradox: Growth without Neo-Liberal Reforms," with
Farrukh Suvankulov, Kuat Bektemirov, and Sergei Chepel, in Gur Ofer and
Richard Pomfret, eds., The Economic Prospects of CIS. Sources of Long
Term GrowthEdward Elgar, April, 2004.
- "Returning to Convertibility in Uzbekistan?," Journal of
Policy Reform, Vol. 6, No. 1, 51-56, 2003.
- "Economy and Security in Central Asia since 9/11: A Skeptical Look,"
Central Asia and the Caucasus, Vol. 19, No. 1, 2003.
- "Crouching Dragon, Hungry Tigers: China in Central Asia," Contemporary
Economic Policy, Vol. 21, No. 2, 278-288, April, 2003.
- "Regional Cooperation in Central Asia," Problems of Post-Communism,
42-47, November-December, 2002.
Journal of Central Asian Studies, Vol. IV, No. 1, 2002.
- “Free at Last? Russia and Uzbekistan,” Problems of Post-Communism,
63-67, January-February, 2002.
- “Economics and Nationalism,” Encyclopedia of Nationalism,
ed. Alexander J. Motyl, Academic Press, 50 pp., 2001.
- “Hunting for the Central Asian Tiger,” Comparative Economic
Studies, Vol. XLII, No. 2, 101-120, Fall 2000.
- “Uzbekistan: the Silk Road to Nowhere?” Contemporary Economic
Policy, Vol. 18, No. 3, 295-303, July 2000.
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