“What I am trying to do with my work these days is to support global ideas and an interconnected society at peace,” declared Prof. Dr. Sachs at the beginning of his lecture to the ISET community.

On Wednesday, January 23, ISET hosted the Governor of the National Bank of Georgia (NBG), Mr. Koba Gvenetadze. Mr. Gvenetadze delivered a profoundly informative lecture about the importance of monetary policies for economic well-being, discussing issues such as the importance of the price stability objective, inflation targeting frameworks (specifically why it is so crucial to avoid both deflation and high inflation), and the efficiency of monetary policy transmission mechanisms under a flexible exchange rate.

Did you know what Georgia produces most and what the share of its production worldwide is? Wine and copper seem the obvious answers – but these would be wrong. The answer is, in fact, cryptocurrency: 15% of all Bitcoins in the world are mined in Georgia, perhaps a disproportionate figure given the country’s small size.

On September 13, ISET hosted Farhad Taghizaden-Sesary, Professor of Economics at Waseda University, Tokyo, and Senior Assistant to the Dean of Asian Development Bank Institute. Dr. Taghizaden-Sesary delivered a lecture entitled Green Energy Finances.

From May 14-18, Pati Mamardashvili visited the Geisenheim University in Germany to attend seminars and give lectures to students. Pati’s visit was aimed at reinforcing cooperation between ISET’s Agricultural Economics Concentration and Geisenheim University.