Georgi Shopov, Ph.D., works at the Institute for Economic Research of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Macroeconomics Section. He is the author of articles, studies and books on the problems of social assistance, social security and regional social development. He has participated in over 60 research projects funded by international and national programs and institutions. He has repeatedly been a consultant to the World Bank, the United Nations Development Program, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the International Labor Organization, and the United States Agency for International Development. In the first half of the 1990s, he worked as an adviser in the Council of Ministers, Deputy Minister and Secretary General in the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy.