On Tuesday, September 15th, Levan Pavlenishvili, research associate of Energy & Environment Research Center, visited Eastern Partnership Youth Camp in Kvareli. Levan leads a session on the Market Economy. He conducted a Competitive Bazaar simulation with camp participants to give them a sense of how the market works. As this simulation requires, Levan divided participants into two groups of buyers and sellers.

Georgian consumer confidence suffered a major blow at the end of 2014, in the wake of the sharp Lari depreciation. Around February 2015, the Index found some support at the very low level of -35-30 points and has been slightly improving since then. In July 2015, this mildly positive trend was reversed, and in August, the Index dropped another 4.1 points to reach a new historical minimum of -38.4 points. Interestingly, this entire drop was driven by older respondents, those aged over 35. We will come back to this point later in the article.

It is easy to understand what it means for an economy to be weak or strong. We know that a strong economy is characterized by low unemployment and high growth rates. Other desirable traits are, for example, low levels of poverty and income inequality, when all citizens enjoy reasonable standards of living.

ISET welcomes Professor Stephan von Cramon-Taubadel as a Visiting Professor at ISET until September 18th. Prof. Cramon-Taubadel is teaching Agricultural Economics I, an elective 3-credit course for second-year students.

There are standard economics courses and then there are those taught by Daniel Levy. Professor Levy is a dynamic and engaging teacher who turns the dismal science on its head (while standing on a chair) and transforms the study of economics into a true adventure. This teaching talent was on full display last in early September as Professor Levy lead ISET students through a "Competitive Bazaar Simulation”.