This week marks the first anniversary of the “ISET Khachapuri Index” in The Financial. During the last 12 months, our faithful readers have followed the ups and the downs of the index and learned many economics lessons in the process.

The National Competitiveness Report (NCR) for Georgia aims to complement the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report by providing an in-depth and comprehensive treatment of competitiveness issues. In particular, it will explore the potential for Georgia to leverage its geographic location and business environment to assume the role of a hub economy in the greater Caucasus region. The overall aim of the project was to generate the first National Competitiveness Report (NCR) for Georgia, following the World Economic Forum's methodology.

Georgia’s growth performance since independence has gone through extremes, from an unprecedented -44.9 percent in 1992 to 12.3 percent in 2007. Although growth rates temporarily fell in the aftermath of the Russian-Georgian war and the world financial crisis they have since then recovered to 7 percent in 2011

The large economies have each, in sequence, offered "models" that once seemed attractive to others but that eventually gave way to disillusionment. Small countries may have some answers.

A recent paper by Dani Rodrik has an interesting observation about Georgia. The paper itself estimates the productivity growth rates of manufacturing firms, based on a UNIDO dataset covering 72 countries.