ISET Economist Blog

05 November 2016

Giorgi Mzhavanadze, Salome Deisadze

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

Casinos, totalizators, and other gambling institutions are very popular in Georgia. According to the study “Gambling in Georgia – Second Report,” conducted by Transparency International Georgia in 2015, 6% of 1867 randomly interviewed people answered “yes” to the question of whether they or their family members were engaged in gambling for money, including online. This figure, in my opinion, is too low, underestimating the potential engagement in gambling among Georgians.

31 October 2016

Irakli Kochlamazashvili, Norberto Pignatti

To Cut or Not to Cut? Shifting Government Priorities and the Uncertain Future of Georgian Agricultural Cooperatives

The Republic of Georgia was among the fastest Former Soviet Union countries to implement large-scale land reform and land redistribution plans, starting in 1992. Land redistribution resulted in the formation of hundreds of thousands of small family farms, replacing large-scale collectives and production cooperatives (Sovkhozez and Kolkhozes). The main purpose of this land individualization process was, arguably, to help a large part of the population survive extremely hard times.

29 October 2016

Ruediger Heining, Florian Biermann

Georgian Agriculture: Beacon or Red Lantern?

A question of causality: Does modernization of agriculture lead to economic growth or does growth induce a modernization of the agricultural sector? For many years, this question has been hotly debated among development economists. While those economists who believe in growth-led agriculture (GLA) were dominating until recently, now the proponents of agriculture-led growth (ALG) are afloat again. Which insights does this debate yield for Georgia?

24 October 2016

Irakli Kochlamazashvili, Eric Livny, David Zhorzholiani

The Shortest Road to Strawberry Field Isn’t Always the Sweetest, or Quickest

Nino Kvirkvelia and her husband Irakli Todua are not exactly your typical Georgian smallholders. Both spouses are well-educated (both hold economics and business degrees from reputable Georgian institutions). More importantly in the context of Georgian agriculture, the couple owns 28(!) hectares of arable land in Georgia’s horticultural heaven, Samegrelo, best known for its hazelnuts.

22 October 2016

Salome Deisadze, Eric Livny

Back to the Future: Will an Old Farming Practice Provide a Market Niche for Georgian Farmers?

Back in ancient times, the moon was the center of everybody’s attention. People worshipped the moon and believed that it had mystical powers. Since then, the lunar effect on human mood and behavior has been an issue for psychological and astrological research. Surprisingly, many economic papers are also concerned about the influence of the lunar phases on stock returns.

19 October 2016

Florian Biermann, Maka Chitanava, Mariam Zaldastanishvili

ISET Consumer Confidence: Anticipation Beats Realization

The CCI, which is computed by ISET-PI on a monthly basis, monitors how Georgians feel about their personal financial situations and the economic well-being of the whole country. Roughly speaking, the index is computed as the difference between the frequencies of positive and negative answers to 12 questions covering the present and expected economic situations of the households surveyed, as well as general economic parameters of the country, such as inflation and unemployment.

ISET Economist Blog

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