27
November
2017
A pleasant surprise awaited me on my first day as a student of Tbilisi State University’s Business and Economics Faculty. Thanks to my performance on the national admission exam, I was inducted into the so-called “Elite Group,” piloted by TSU in an effort to attract Georgia’s best and brightest. There were 50 of us in the group, mostly from working class families, and none felt like they belonged to any kind of “elite.”
27
November
2017
In the last two weeks of November, ISET’s Retail Food Price Index showed a significant, 10.8% y/y increase (compared to November 2016). On a monthly basis (compared to October 2017), food prices in Tbilisi’s major supermarkets increased slightly by 0.9%. We recorded the biggest bi-weekly price increases for eggplant (41.2%), cucumbers (20.5%), and onions (16.3%).
24
November
2017
On November 22, ISET started a policy seminar series provided by the second-year students of ISET’s MA program. The first presentation was delivered by Tamari Tetvadze & Gunash Kamzaevi, under the supervision of Eric Livny, president of ISET and ISET-PI, and Giorgi Mzhavanadze, Senior Researcher at the Macroeconomic Policy Research Center(MPRC) of ISET-PI.
16
October
2017
In September 2017, the average cost of cooking one standard Imeretian khachapuri varied across Georgian cities, from 3.33 GEL (the minimum observed in Tbilisi), to 3.85 GEL (the maximum observed in Telavi). The average price was 3.63 GEL, which is 5.5% higher compared to the previous month (August 2017), and 6% higher compared to September of last year.
16
October
2017
In the first half of October, food prices in Tbilisi’s major supermarkets increased by 10.8% compared to October 2017. On a monthly basis (that is, compared to September 2017), ISET’s Retail Food Price Index increased slightly by 1.7%. On a biweekly basis, most of the prices increased, leading to a higher Retail FPI.
