On November 13, 2013, ISET hosted a presentation of the preliminary results of “Support in Economic Policy Analysis Using CGE Modeling in Georgia,” an ISET Policy Institute project that started in December 2012 with the financial and technical support of GIZ’s Private Sector Development Program South Caucasus.

The purpose of the event was to present the preliminary results of three policy papers to the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development (MoESD) and the National Bank of Georgia (NBG) and to gather necessary feedback and suggestions, which will then be incorporated into the final policy papers. The three papers presented during the event were:

1. Rural vs. Urban Economic Policy: Choosing a Winner

• Authors: Lasha Labadze & Irakli Galdava
• Stakeholder: Investment and Export Policy Department (MoESD)

2. The Welfare Effects of Exchange Rate Risk in Georgia

• Author: Aleksandre Ergeshidze
• Stakeholder: Macroeconomic Research Division of the Macroeconomics and Statistics Department, NBG

3. Estimating the Cost of Banking Sector Inefficiency

• Author: Dace Javashvili
• Stakeholder: Specialized Groups and Supervisory Policy Department, NBG

After presenting the preliminary results of each paper a considerable amount of time was devoted to questions, discussion, suggestions, and feedback. The authors of the papers each answered questions from the stakeholders and, at the same time, received feedback that will be reflected in the final results.

At the end of the event, all stakeholders positively evaluated the work done and hailed the significance and importance of all three projects. The NBG and the Ministry of Economic and Sustainable Development, the main stakeholders of the project, unanimously pointed out the potential of the papers for aiding policy analysis and policy recommendations. Furthermore, as Eric Livny and Giorgi Okropiridze commented, the five ISETers who had been intensively trained in CGE models before the project now have a local monopoly of CGE knowledge.