Dr. Roman Sheremeta, the behavioral economist on Ukraine's National Recovery Council, joins The Change Agent Podcast on rebuilding a country's economy while the war is still being fought. He chairs economics at Case Western Reserve University, ran American University Kyiv through the invasion's opening weeks, and studies the game theory behind Russia's nuclear threats.
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Sheremeta's path started with chess. Playing semi-professionally as a kid in Ukraine sparked a curiosity about strategic decision making that grew into a career in game theory and behavioral economics. He won the Smith Budding Genius Award, was named a top economist by Forbes, and made the 40 Under 40 list from Poets and Quants. Those credentials got Ukrainian officials calling, first under Poroshenko, later onto Zelensky's advisory board once the war began.
In late 2021, he and his wife left a tenured life in Cleveland to open American University Kyiv, which opened its doors in February 2022. Three weeks later, Kyiv was bombed. He talks about a faculty member trapped in Sumy with two disabled parents and no way out, and a live TV interview hours before the invasion where he argued Russia would never attack. As a behavioral economist studying overconfidence and self-confirmation bias, he fell for both himself.
The talk then turns to the front lines, where he delivered aid near Kherson, sat in a command center shelled soon after his visit, and lost three friends to the war, one later named a Hero of Ukraine. He talks about going from a bunker to a lecture hall in the same week, why it left him both harsher and more compassionate, and breaks down Russia's nuclear game theory and what his research found about the one message that gets civilians to evacuate a war zone.
00:00 Introduction
06:21 The pull to return home to Ukraine
14:32 Missed signals before the full-scale invasion
23:42 Delivering aid to soldiers on the front line
30:55 How war experience reshaped his teaching
39:37 Where Ukraine's recovery council falls short
45:20 The nudge that actually saved evacuees
51:02 Funding oversight and rebuilding without corruption
Dr. Roman Sheremeta's LinkedIn
Dr. Sheremeta's Profile at Case Western
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