On Thursday June 9th, Professor Bruce Boghosian of Tufts University gave a presentation entitled "The Statics and Dynamics of Wealth Distribution", a fascinating topic which detailed the use of an innovative approach to investigate inequality dynamics. Professor Boghosian first reviewed the history of measuring inequality, and discussed the works of well-known scholars of the field such as Pareto, Gibrat, Lorenz, and Gini, and then shared his own fascinating research with the audience. Though the mathematical rigour of the models was interesting, the results were fascinating; Boghosian showed that under certain conditions (when total wealth is unchanged and transactions between economic agents are conducted with few mistakes), societies are consistently prone to wealth concentration and Gini coefficient trends increase.

ISET PI became a member of the Georgian Alliance on Agricultural and Rural Development (GAARD) on June 9th. The GAARD was established in 2014 and includes people from the Ministry of Agriculture, academic institutions, non-governmental organizations, and independent experts.

After a group of economics students and professors from UNIL visited Tbilisi earlier this year and undertook a course in Mechanism Design taught by ISET’s senior academic advisor, Professor Motty Perry (University of Warwick), a delegation consisting of ISET professor Florian Biermann, three second-year students (Mzia Giorgadze, Gela Gelashvili, Laura Manukyan) and two ISET alumni (Saba Devdariani and Aram Grigorian) paid a return visit to Switzerland.

In May 2016, the average cost of cooking one standard Imeretian khachapuri declined to 3.08 GEL, which is 2.7% lower month-on-month (that is compared to April 2016), but 7% higher year-on-year (compared to May 2015).

On June 3 2016, a Round Table Discussion of Tea Cooperatives was held in Kutaisi. This was the third event in a series of dialogues about agriculture and rural development in Georgia organized by ISET Policy Institute (ISET-PI) in partnership with CARE International, the Regional Development Association and the Georgian Farmers Association, with support from the European Neighbourhood Programme for Agriculture and Rural Development (ENPARD).