ISET Economist Blog

21 October 2013

Eric Livny, Lasha Labadze

Georgia on the Development Frontier: From Subsistence Agriculture to Exchange

While written in 1991, “The Development Frontier” by Peter Bauer has lost none of its relevance for Georgia and other predominantly agrarian economies of the 21st century. Economic development, suggests Bauer, “begins with the replacement of subsistence activities by production for sale.

19 October 2013

Eric Livny

Assessing the Impact of Development Projects – Looking for a Black Cat in a Dark Room and Hoping that the Cat is There?

Do development projects reach their stated objectives, such as reducing poverty, improving skills, creating jobs, etc.? This turns out to be a complicated question about project impact that a simple before-and-after measurement would not help answer. Why?

14 October 2013

Nino Abashidze, Florian Biermann

The University of Life

When economists speak about education and human capital, they usually mean formal education. It is provided in schools and universities by formally qualified teachers. These are imparting knowledge that is laid down in curricula, and the result of the learning process is testified by certificates and diplomas conferred to those students who passed exams.

11 October 2013

Giorgi Kelbakiani, Norberto Pignatti

Electricity Generation in Georgia II: Blowing Wind into the System

In the first part of our article, we pointed out that electricity generation by hydropower is subject to strong seasonal variations. We argued that the seasonality of hydropower reduces the profitability of new plants, as they deliver the highest output in the time of the year when electricity is relatively cheap anyway, while they produce rather little when electricity is expensive.

07 October 2013

Nikoloz Pkhakadze

The Two Faces of Foreign Direct Investment

Recently, the Georgian media abounded with alarming reports about a slowdown of foreign direct investments (FDI) in Georgia. Indeed, economic figures seem to support the view that there may be a turn in the FDI activity. The graph shows FDI in the first two quarters of each year from 2005 to 2013.

04 October 2013

Giorgi Kelbakiani, Norberto Pignatti

Electricity Generation in Georgia I: The Seasonality Problem

In our two-part article, we discuss how combining wind and hydropower can help the Republic of Georgia to achieve energy independence and become a net energy exporter.

ISET Economist Blog

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