Imagine arriving at a provincial airport in an unnamed Central Asian country. You leave the terminal and go straight to a row of waiting taxis. In your Lonely Planet, you read that you should pay about $10 for what is a short taxi ride to the city center. You ask the first taxi driver and are quoted a fantasy price of $50. You try to bargain, to no avail. You go to the next taxi, and once again you are quoted $50.

The mountain of promises to modify Georgia’s liberal labor code has recently produced a little mouse in the shape of a statement by Deputy Prime Minister Giorgi Margvelashvili who, according to GeorgiaNews.ge, “branded the new labor code project a “dream of Rosa Luxemburg”.

On May 1, 2013, Professor Eberhard Feess of the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, held a seminar at ISET on Competition Policy. The presentation covered theoretical and applied aspects of competition policy and its relevance to Georgia.

In recent weeks there has been a lot of talk about alleged monopolies and cartels in Georgia, and Georgia’s future competition policy. With few exceptions, this debate has been pathetic.

Economics suggests that competition in a market brings more welfare to a country. Anti-monopoly agencies exist to create policies that limit market dominance and achieve competition.