Studying at Georgian universities in the 1990s was ludicrous. The students or their parents negotiated with the heads of the exam committees and/or the deans of the faculties about the “terms and conditions”, i.e. the bribes that would have to be paid and the “services” that would be delivered in exchange.

The average cost of cooking one standard Imeretian Khachapuri in May 2015 stood at 2.88 GEL, which is 2.7% lower month-on-month (i.e. compared to April 2015). The Khachapuri Index is actually up by 1% year-on-year (compared to May 2014), suggesting a slight uptick in annual inflation, at least as far khachapuri ingredients are concerned.

On Thursday, May 21st, ISET hosted the Governor of the National Bank of Georgia (NBG), Mr. Giorgi Kadagidze, who delivered a profoundly informative seminar to the ISET community and participants of the ISET Finance Course for Professionals.

In March 2015, 31-year-old Tamar Trapaidze died of severe toxicity in Italy. Like many Georgian women of her generation, Tamar was an illegal immigrant employed as an in-home care worker by an Italian family. Being “illegal”, she must have feared deportation, which is probably why she was unable to receive adequate medical treatment.

On Monday, May 18th, ISET hosted Mr. Jan Klingelhöfer from RWTH Aachen University who presented his paper titled “The Swing Voters' Blessing" to the ISET community. The paper deals with the following question: can democracy work well if the electorate is neither fully informed nor fully rational?