On May 23, ISET-PI hosted the launch ceremony of ReforMeter, which was attended by representatives of government institutions, NGOs, and international organizations. Welcoming remarks were made by Shamennna K. Gall, the acting Deputy Economic Growth Offices of the US Embassy, and Bruno Balvanera, the EBRD Director for the Caucasus, Moldova, and Belarus.
On May 22, ISET hosted Francois Painchaud, the IMF Resident Representative in Georgia. Mr. Painchaud presented the 2017 May Regional Economic Outlook for the Caucasus and Central Asia, highlighting the three main areas of the global and regional environment, outlook and policy actions, and policy priorities.
In economics, there is a long-standing debate on whether emerging markets should adopt a fixed exchange rate currency regime or leave their exchange rates up to markets to decide. Intuitively, the exchange rate is just another price, similar to the price of a sack of potatoes, a liter of milk, or a kilogram of honey. Except that the exchange rate is the price of 1 unit of foreign currency (say, 1 US dollar) in terms of our domestic currency.
According to the recent World Happiness Report 2017, Georgia ranks 125th among 155 countries with respect to peoples’ happiness. On a 0-10 happiness scale, the country scores only 4.29. Figure 1 below presents rankings and happiness scores for Georgia and its neighbors, as well as for the world’s best and worst performers.
On May 19, 2017, at the Radisson Blu Iveria hotel, the Agriculture Policy Research Center (APRC) of the ISET Policy Institute (ISET-PI) presented two reports regarding “The Georgian Tea Value Chain Study” and “The Georgian Trout Value Chain Study” value chain analyses.