ISET Economist Blog

21 February 2014

Nino Doghonadze, Eric Livny

Lending by Georgian Banks Boosts Savings and Provides Shelter from Relatives in Need

Georgian households, being as poor as they are, don't save enough for the rainy day. Do low savings imply that Georgians are impatient to consume and do not care about their future? Is it in our genes that we prefer today’s egg to tomorrow’s chicken? Maybe our history, the history of a small nation struggling for survival, taught us to live our lives one day at a time?

17 February 2014

Giorgi Tsutskiridze, Florian Biermann

Regulating Rightly

Regulations apparently address problems of a society in a quick and uncomplicated way, and the call for regulations, therefore, is one of the most effective weapons in the arsenal of populists. Whether or not regulation will help to solve the problem, in any case, it creates the impression that politicians are doing something.

14 February 2014

Nikoloz Pkhakadze

When Morals Constrict the Markets

It is well known that government intervention, be it through taxation or regulation, can obstruct the functioning of markets. Yet there is another kind of influence that may also have strong effects on the efficiency of an economy but is much less discussed, namely the set of values, traditions, and moral standards a society subscribes to.

10 February 2014

Florian Biermann

Why Nations Fail

Over the winter holidays, I had the leisure to read the book “Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty” by MIT economist Daron Acemoglu and Harvard political scientist James A. Robinson (Crown Business 2012, 544 pages, Hardcover $20.00). Both authors are very eminent – one would not be surprised if Acemoglu, a Turkish-born Armenian and the most frequently cited contemporary economist, would receive the Nobel Prize in economics somewhere down the road.

06 February 2014

Olga Azhgibetseva

Looking Over the Border: Immigration to Azerbaijan

For some years, Azerbaijan experiences an immigration wave. Chart 1 shows the net immigration (immigration minus emigration) to Azerbaijan during the last 22 years. As can be seen, every year since 2008 more people are immigrating to Azerbaijan than there are emigrating. In 2012, for instance, 2000 net migrants came to Azerbaijan.

03 February 2014

Florian Biermann, Giorgi Tsutskiridze

The Lari Depreciation

The value of a currency, measured in terms of other currencies, has consequences for the real economy. A more expensive lari, for example, makes it more profitable to import goods into Georgia. The importer has to pay the foreign goods with foreign currency, and when the lari is more valuable, fewer lari is needed to pay for them.

ISET Economist Blog

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