ISET Economist Blog

30 November 2020

Ia Katsia

Food Security and COVID-19 in Georgia

Food supply systems are crucial to the economies of most developing countries, supplying the largest share of food production, and constituting livelihoods and a key source of income for the majority of the population (FAO, 2020). It is therefore vital to maintain the steady flow of goods and services required from local and international food supply chains to ensure the health of the population, and to protect their incomes and livelihoods.

16 November 2020

Yaroslava Babych, Luc Leruth

Tbilisi: a Growing City with Growing Needs

Until 2014, the population of Tbilisi remained more or less constant, even slightly decreasing at the same rate as the population of the country as a whole. Since 2014, though, there has been a marked migration to the capital as seen in the graph below.

09 November 2020

Mariam Chachava

Tbilisi Central Park Project – Call for More Green Space in the City

Given the increasing pressure on the city’s environment, action should be taken to provide a healthier and more habitable space. The development of urban parks is therefore one viable option. However, the trend over the last decade has gone in exactly the opposite direction, with green space per capita decreasing dramatically; estimations from Tbilisi City Hall data highlight that per-capita green space decreased from 5.6 to 1.3m2 between 2010-2018 (well below average European standards 10-15m2).

02 November 2020

Luc Leruth, Tamta Maridashvili

The Inflation Targeting Framework of the National Bank of Georgia: Is It the Right Model?

As the Georgian Lari (GEL) briefly depreciated in September 2020, the National Bank of Georgia (NBG) once again became the subject of criticism for not being able to stabilize the exchange rate even though it had injected 120 million US$ into the economy. At a press conference (2020/09/16), the President of the NBG objected that the aim of the injection of US$ was not to strengthen the GEL since the NBG operated under a floating exchange rate policy. Rather, he went on to explain, the NBG’s constitutional duty was to ensure price stability on the basis of an inflation-targeting framework.

26 October 2020

Levan Tevdoradze, Giorgi Papava

Right or Left: What Are Political Parties’ Economic Visions?

Last week Georgians took part in largely proportional parliamentary elections. Dozens of parties were registered as election contestants. To what extent do their visions coincide with yours in different important areas of public policy? You can get a detailed answer to these questions on the digital platform "Election Compass Georgia".

19 October 2020

Yaroslava Babych, Davit Keshelava

Sorry, You're Fired Due to COVID! Has COVID-19 Widened Gender Gap?

When the Georgian unemployment statistics for Quarter 2 (April, May, June) of 2020 came out, no one was surprised to see that the national unemployment rate, which had been falling steadily over the previous quarters, and even years, suddenly increased by 0.9 percentage points relative to the same quarter of 2019 (more precisely from 11.4% in Q2 2019 to 12.3% in Q2 2020). Perhaps we were more surprised by the fact that the unemployment rate did not go up more drastically in the midst of a strict lockdown, various travel restrictions, and quarantine measures.

ISET Economist Blog

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