Nikolai Kondratiev

About Nikolai Kondratiev

Nikolai Dmitriyevich Kondratiev (; also Kondratieff; Russian: Никола́й Дми́триевич Кондра́тьев; 4 March 1892 – 17 September 1938) was a Russian Soviet economist and proponent of the New Economic Policy (NEP) best known for the business cycle theory known as Kondratiev waves. Despite being a Soviet citizen, he was not a Marxian economist. Kondratiev became an early leading figure of Soviet economics and promoted the NEP's system of small private free market enterprises in the Soviet Union. Kondratiev's theory that Western capitalist economies have long term (50-to-60-year) cycles of boom followed by depression gained recognition inside and outside the Soviet Union. Kondratiev was condemned and imprisoned in 1930, but continued to work until his execution during the Great Purge in 1938.