From September 1989 to August 1991, Leszek Balcerowicz served as deputy prime minister and finance minister in Tadeusz Mazowiecki’s administration, which was Eastern Europe’s first noncommunist government since the end of World War II. He held those positions again from October 1997 to June 2000.

He was chief architect of the Balcerowicz Plan, a radical reform program that helped transform the Polish economy in the 1990s. He liberalized the prices of most consumer goods and initiated sound fiscal and monetary measures designed to balance the budget and end hyperinflation.