On 1-2 February, Yaroslava Babych, head of Macroeconomic Policy Research Center participated in an international forum – “The Prospects of Georgia’s Democratic and Economic Development” organized by the Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI), in partnership with the University of Bremen and with the financial support of the Federal Foreign Office of Germany.

This project implements Hierarchical Linear Modeling and identifies determinant factors for mathematics test results in Georgia.

The aim of the project by ISET-PI, TNS, and TBC bank was to find out the level of financial literacy in Georgia. 1000 respondents were surveyed in the biggest cities of Georgia. The project is divided in three parts dealing with finance, trust in financial institutions, and financial literacy, in order to investigate Georgian citizens' behavior.

Georgian crime is ravaging in Germany. On February 28th of last year, the Augsburger Allgemeine published an article titled “Police captures Georgian burglary gang”. On May 22nd, the police of Bavaria issued a press release titled “DNA proves Georgian burglars to be guilty”. On August 13th, an article in the Bietigheimer Zeitung was titled “Georgian burglars put behind bars”, mentioning that since 2010, “burglaries by Georgian perpetrators have increased dramatically”.

When I left Russia back in late 2006, attempting to cross a busy Moscow street bordered on suicide. Instead of slowing down before a zebra crossing, Russian drivers were in the habit of accelerating so as to signal their intention NOT to stop. Understandably, pedestrians had no choice but to adjust their street crossing strategies accordingly.