ISET Economist Blog

28 February 2025

Tamar Sulukhia, Davit Keshelava

Is Georgia facing the risk of accelerated brain drain

Today Georgia is facing an increasing risk of brain drain. In recent years, Georgia has been experiencing a brain drain, with an increasing number of skilled professionals, young workers, and students leaving the country in search of better economic opportunities and stability. Since independence, the outmigration of Georgians has been mostly driven by economic factors – jobs, higher wages, better working conditions, and career advancement opportunities abroad.

08 January 2025

Tamar Sulukhia

OpEd: Institutions matter – risks Georgia’s independent institutions face

In the globally very turbulent 2024, Georgia was under the spotlight in the global arena, but not for a good reason and with nothing to celebrate. On the contrary, this spotlight was earned by its government’s risky shift away from the EU trajectory and, post the 26 October Parliamentary election, the powerful, non-stop peaceful street protests of the pro-European population in the capital Tbilisi and other cities, those demanding free and fair new elections.

02 July 2024

Sopha Gujabidze, Tamar Sulukhia

Policy panel: current economic challenges and opportunities in Georgia

The Policy Panel: Current Economic Challenges and Opportunities in Georgia was sponsored and organized by ISET Policy Institute as part of the 1st International Conference of the Georgian Economic Association on July 2, 2024, at Stamba.

12 April 2021

Tamar Sulukhia

Inflation of Trust

World economies hampered by the pandemic; countries facing public healthcare crises, with millions killed by COVID-19; thousands of cities under lockdown; social distancing and transformed social practices; countless institutions functioning online; the youth spending endless days and nights in front of computer screens; and, globally, over a year of online education. This is the reality in many countries around the world, including Georgia, in the spring of 2021.

07 September 2020

Tamar Sulukhia

New Old Chavchavadze Avenue – Putting the Horse Ahead of the Cart?

One issue on the tip of everyone’s tongue these days in Tbilisi—along with the August holidays and the risks of COVID-19—is the newly-rehabilitated Chavchavadze Avenue, which was recently reopened to traffic. Why is this issue so “popular”?

10 June 2020

Tamta Maridashvili

Could the Government Act as Coordinator?

In Avchala, in the middle of nowhere, you might be surprised to find the busy “Craftsmen’s City” or “Khelosnebis Kalaki” as it is called in Georgian. It is built on a 4-ha plot where there used to be a large carpet manufacturing plant in Soviet times, which vanished with the Soviet Union and turned into a concrete carcass surrounded by a swamp.

ISET Economist Blog

A blog about economics in the South Caucasus financed within the institutional grant by the Government of Sweden.