ISET Economist Blog

25 January 2016

Eric Livny

If Moscow Can Beat the Traffic, So Can Tbilisi!

When I left Russia back in late 2006, attempting to cross a busy Moscow street bordered on suicide. Instead of slowing down before a zebra crossing, Russian drivers were in the habit of accelerating so as to signal their intention NOT to stop. Understandably, pedestrians had no choice but to adjust their street crossing strategies accordingly.

23 January 2016

Ia Katsia

Mandatory Flour Fortification in Georgia: a Boon or a Burden for the Poor?

Soon the Georgian Parliament will be discussing a small but important change, which will affect something as significant and vital as bread, along with pasta, khachapuri, and anything made with wheat flour. The Georgian legislators will be considering a law, according to which flour fortification will become mandatory in Georgia.

18 January 2016

Yaroslava Babych

Men Are Rational, Women Are Adaptive?

For over three and a half years, the ISET Policy Institute has been tracking the trends in the Georgian consumer sentiments. Every month a team of callers dial randomly generated telephone numbers to interview around 330 people from all over Georgia. The interviewer first asks the basic questions about the respondent’s age, level of education, place of residence, and then follows up with questions about the current financial situation of the household and the person’s expectations about the future economic situation in the country.

11 January 2016

Izat Berenaliev

Is Winter Tourism in the Kyrgyz Republic Able to Reach the International Level?

In recent years, winter tourism in Kyrgyzstan develops rapidly and becomes much more popular. There are more than 6 ski resorts with chair lifts and several small bases with regular lifts in Kyrgyzstan. Besides them, there are a lot of building projects for new, modern ski resorts in various regions of Kyrgyzstan. The mountain territory of Kyrgyzstan provides comprehensive opportunities for their development.

20 December 2015

Charles Johnson

Give Your Country a Holiday Gift: Buy Small, Buy Local, Buy Georgian!

Once again, Georgians across the country are preparing for the holiday season, making travel plans, crushing walnuts for gozinaki, and buying gifts for their friends and families. Gifts are an important part of celebrating the New Year and Christmas, signifying the importance of friendship and allowing us to treat our loved ones to something to start a brand new year in style.

14 December 2015

Nino Doghonadze

Mass Family Gatherings in Georgia: Tradition of Waste or a Form of Insurance?

There is a Georgian joke that goes: “Relatives are the people you see whenever their number changes”. In other words, relatives all tend to gather when any of them gets married, gives birth, or dies. As a result, we frequently observe Georgians organizing mass gatherings to either celebrate or mourn numerical “changes” in their families. While there is a recent trend among the wealthier and better-educated people to switch to more intimate, smaller events, the poorer rural people continue to arrange Georgian supra of monumental proportions.

ISET Economist Blog

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