ISET Economist Blog

07 February 2020

Levan Pavlenishvili, Mariam Tsulukidze, Norberto Pignatti

Is Climate Change Threatening Georgian Winter Tourism? – Part 1

This year the winter season started later than usual in nearly all Georgian ski resorts (except Goderdzi) due to a lack of snow. Given the heated international discussions on climate change and global warming in recent years, the lack of snow in Georgian ski resorts has raised questions concerning the future economic viability of winter tourism in the country. This is hardly an unexpected development as even the World Tourism Organization recognizes that mountain tourism is especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change (UNWTO, 2015).

31 January 2020

Mariam Katsadze, Ana Burduli

Recent Monetary Policy Measures and Lending Regulations — the Effect on Georgian Lending Patterns

High and rising levels of foreign currency indebtedness have been an important topic in Georgia over the past several years. To address this issue and protect borrowers from currency risks, the National Bank of Georgia (NBG), as well as the Georgian Government have implemented regulations to hinder excess indebtedness. Let’s have a look at the timeline (Figure 1) of recent lending regulations and the accompanying monetary policy measures and observe their impact on changing lending patterns in the Georgian economy.

24 January 2020

Salome Deisadze, Ia Katsia

Earth Is not Cool, It Is Getting Hotter!!!

Three main economic sectors contributing to climate change are: energy (61%), transport (20.1%), and agriculture (8.5%). Interestingly, 25% of human-induced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are caused by agriculture, forestry, and the change of land use. Within agriculture, the major contributor is the livestock sector, accounting for 44% of human-induced methane (CH4), 53% of nitrous oxide (N2O), and 5% of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

17 January 2020

Yaroslava Babych

Making a Break-Through in Gender Equality Will Not Be Easy – That’s Why Evidence-Based Approaches to Policy Should Be Taken Seriously

On November 15-16, 2019, FREE Network and ISET Policy Institute organized and conducted an international gender economics conference in Tbilisi, Georgia1. The conference brought together researchers, policy-makers, and the broader development community to discuss obstacles to gender equality and women’s economic empowerment, and policies to remove the existing constraints, focusing on Eastern Europe and Emerging Economies.

10 January 2020

Tamta Maridashvili

The Paths Towards Inclusive Economic Growth in Georgia

The economic policies of successive Georgian governments have arguably lacked cohesive direction when it comes to inclusive growth. There still remains an open question of whether the overall goal has been to pull people from agriculture or to leave them where they are while pushing productivity up via, for instance, funding the development of cooperatives or clusters. Concurrently, the state also has introduced industrial policies, like establishing SME support agencies that operate under the auspices of different ministries.

30 December 2019

Ia Katsia, Salome Deisadze

Food Prices are on Fire

In November 2019, prices for food and non-alcoholic beverages, as measured by the Food Price Index (FPI), drastically increased by 13.4% compared to November 2018 and contributed 4.02 percentage points to the change in the total Consumer Price Index (CPI). In recent months, annual food inflation marked at its highest level since August 2011 (Figure 1).

ISET Economist Blog

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