On the 15th of March 1962, President John F. Kennedy delivered a seminal speech to the congress, outlining the four rights that he considered essential for consumers: the right to safety, the right to be informed, the right to choose, and the right to be heard. Ever since Kennedy’s speech, the idea of consumer protection blossomed both in theory and in practice. In this year, 52 years after Kennedy’s speech, Georgia will pass a new law on the protection of consumer rights.

Last week, we argued that political decision-makers have a tendency to overregulate a society, as new laws, even useless or harmful ones, create the impression that politicians are addressing problems in society. Moreover, we outlined the theory of a military historian who claims that the Red Army was an “overregulated army”, explaining the disproportionate death toll of the Red Army in the Second World War.

For many observers, the Georgian job market is a mystery. Companies are bitterly complaining about a lack of engineers, forcing them to withhold the expansion of production capacities and to cut down investments. Yet Georgian young people, who could make good fortunes by studying technical subjects, prefer to learn the law, business administration and the like, qualifications that are oversupplied in the market and on average do not yield high salaries.

On December 4, ISET hosted a lecture by Professor Avner Shaked from the University of Bonn – one of the greatest modern game theorists who also delivers courses in game theory and industrial organizations at ISET. The talk was devoted to a serious flaw uncovered concerning famous economic journals the Quarterly Journal of Economics (QJE) and Econometrica.

Most of us take as a given the necessity of strong property rights protection. It is hard to imagine economies that could flourish and develop if the security of persons and property conditions are not met.