Since March 2017, the CCI has shown a positive trend. It yielded a 9.1 increase from March 2017 (-31) to May 2017 (-21.9), expressing the optimistic perceptions of Georgians during these months. However, the CCI did not maintain this upward trend in June. Overall, in June the CCI went down by 3.2 points compared to May 2017 (from -21.9 to -25.1). Present Situation and Expectations Indices were also affected negatively in June 2017. Moreover, the former went down by more - 4 points (from -29.4 to -33.4) than the latter, which dropped 2.6 points, (from -14.3 to -16.9). Thus, Georgians are less pessimistic about the future than the present.

TBILISI VS. THE REST OF GEORGIA

When looking at the results for recent months, from April to June 2017, people in Tbilisi and the Rest of Georgia signaled different insights about Georgia’s economy. This is reflected in the Overall CCI and Present situation indexes. The Rest of Georgia was rather stable about the present situation, thus keeping that index nearly constant. It worsened by a mere -0.3 points from April 2017 (-37.3) to June 2017 (-37.6). The same index for Tbilisians went down exactly by 1 point over the same period (from -6.8 to -27.8). However, the most interesting thing about Tbilisi was that from April 2017 to May 2017, the Present situation index for Tbilisians increased by 6.4 points (from -26.8 to -20.4), and then decreased by more in June 2017, 7.4 points (from -20.4 to -27.8), yielding an overall negative change of 1 point.

YOUNG VS. OLD

Unlike the decrease in Overall CCI in June 2017, two groups of Georgians, young and old, both expect the economy to stabilize in the nearest future (in 12 months). They have better hopes for expected inflation (6) and expected unemployment (7). The young kept improving their expectations about the latter economic indicators beginning in April 2017, but the old converged with the expectations of the young group beginning very shortly thereafter, in May 2017!

MALE VS. FEMALE

Since January 2017, men and women have shared each other’s insights, which is reflected in the Overall CCI. From January to March 2017, the Overall CCI for men went down by 2.7 points (from -29.2 to 31.9), while for women it dropped by 5.2 points (from -24.9 to -30.1). Thereafter, the Overall CCI improved for both, from March to May 2017, by 11.9 points for men (-31.9 to -20) and by 6.7 points for women (-30.1 to 23.4). It then declined again in June 2017, by 4.4 points for men (-20 to -24.4) and by 2.4 points for women (-23.4 to -25.8), compared to May 2017. If we look at the overall change from January to June 2017, the change in Overall CCI for men was positive at 4.8 points (-29.2 to -24.4), and negative for women at -0.9 (-24.9 to 25.8). The interesting observation, in this case, is that from January to April, Overall CCI for men is below women’s, but rises above women’s thereafter!

Table 1: Monthly and Yearly changes in the CCI variables

Bar Charts: Consumer Responses by Questions