ISET Economist Blog

29 May 2017

Ia Katsia

Higher Equality for Higher Growth

The Georgian constitution has a guarantee of gender equality in the country. Accordingly, men and women have equal rights to land ownership, and the right to inherit land is the same for both sexes. However, in Georgia, as in many developing countries, land ownership issues are very much influenced by cultural values. Georgian traditions make it less likely that land will be inherited by the daughter.

27 May 2017

Giorgi Papava, Laura Manukyan

Sabina and Rahul, Welcome to Georgia!

The number of foreign students has been steadily increasing around the world. More and more students choose to earn a degree outside of their home countries. Education internalization plays a key role in the development of today’s educational systems, and the impact of international students goes beyond their short-term financial effect on the economy; it plays a vital role in social cohesion and the development of international networks, etc.

22 May 2017

Davit Keshelava, Yaroslava Babych

Free or Fearful? The Fear of Floating in the South Caucasus

In economics, there is a long-standing debate on whether emerging markets should adopt a fixed exchange rate currency regime or leave their exchange rates up to markets to decide. Intuitively, the exchange rate is just another price, similar to the price of a sack of potatoes, a liter of milk, or a kilogram of honey. Except that the exchange rate is the price of 1 unit of foreign currency (say, 1 US dollar) in terms of our domestic currency.

20 May 2017

Maka Chitanava

Who Said “First Duty, Then Pleasure”? When Happiness and Success (Individual and National) Go Hand in Hand

According to the recent World Happiness Report 2017, Georgia ranks 125th among 155 countries with respect to peoples’ happiness. On a 0-10 happiness scale, the country scores only 4.29. Figure 1 below presents rankings and happiness scores for Georgia and its neighbors, as well as for the world’s best and worst performers.

15 May 2017

Laura Manukyan, Florian Biermann

Best Pedagogy for Georgia!

Given Georgia’s dysfunctional educational sector, it is impressive how many Georgians excel intellectually. For example, ISET regularly sends some of its graduates to the best Ph.D. programs in the world, proving that many Georgians succeed in realizing their intellectual potentials despite unfavorable conditions. At the same time, we notice that a considerable share of students who get enrolled at ISET are not well-endowed with essential knowledge and competencies, lacking, for example, presentation skills, writing proficiency, and resourcefulness in discussion and argumentation.

13 May 2017

Salome Gelashvili, Phatima Mamardashvili

Hunger Games: Speculation in Food Markets

In the old Soviet movie, “Once Upon a Time Twenty Years Later,” a mother of ten who bought a lot of clothing and food in a local shop was suspected of being a speculator by the shop administrator, who immediately called police as the woman left the shop. The woman survived arrest after it was discovered that she bought so many goods exclusively for her big family, and not for resale or so-called speculation.

ISET Economist Blog

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