Economist and author Marshall I. Goldman, "who diagnosed deficiencies in Moscow's economic policies for decades and was among the first Kremlinologists to predict the downfall of Mikhail S. Gorbachev," died August 2, the New York Times reported. He was 87.
"Marshall Goldman counts among the pioneers of American studies of the Soviet economy,” said Paul Roderick Gregory, an economics professor at the University of Houston and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution.
Goldman's books include Petrostate: Putin, Power and the New Russia; The Piratization of Russia: Russian Reform Goes Awry; What Went Wrong With Perestroika; Lost Opportunity: What Has Made Economic Reform in Russia So Difficult?; and Oilopoly: Putin, Power and the Rise of the New Russia.