According to Micklewright (Macroeconomics and Data on Children, UNICEF 2000), a share of 7% of the Georgian gross domestic product of the year 1991 accounted for education. In 1994, this number had fallen to 1%. As Micklewright comments, such a dramatic decrease in educational expenditures was never seen before nor afterward in the history of any country. Recovery after the crisis was a long process.

On Monday, February 15th, ISET and the Faculty of Business and Economics of the University of Lausanne (Switzerland) jointly organized a workshop on economic theory and related fields. The workshop took place in the conference hall at ISET from the afternoon until the late evening, interrupted only by various coffee breaks, which gave the attending students from ISET and HEC Lausanne the opportunity to connect with the presenters, build up their professional networks, and discuss frontier research in economics.

This week, another crazy idea haunted economically faltering Europe. According to the plans of European politicians, the 500 euro note will disappear and cash payments above 5,000 euro will be made illegal. Officially a measure against money laundering, the pretext was correctly debunked by Hans-Werner Sinn in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: the true reason for this step is to push interest rates further down.

ISET – International School of Economics at TSU is opening the annual application process for its highly prestigious Master’s Degree Program in Economics. ISET’s curriculum mirrors the best programs in the US and Western Europe and is taught in English by international professors.

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.