A few days ago, I was walking in Kostava Street towards the Philharmony when I passed a construction site that was separated from the sidewalk by a wooden fence. Suddenly, I heard the ugly sound of fabric torn apart. Yes, it had happened! My nice winter coat was ripped up by a rusty nail that stuck out of the fence, causing a huge hole in the coat that went down to the lining.

Each year top students from ISET receive exceptionally promising and appealing offers to continue their graduate education at some of the best universities in the world. ISET graduates have been pursuing their Ph.D.’s at top universities such as University of Pennsylvania, University of Chicago, Stanford University, New York University etc. 32 ISETers have been selected throughout the past 8 years. Another six ISET graduates have successfully continued the path towards their Ph.D. Degrees this year. With full support of ISET’s senior international faculty, they are currently engaged in the first year of their studies. Most of them have already done some of their own research being a part of ISET’s “Third Year Program” working with ISET-PI on policy projects relevant to the fields of their interest, contributing to the ISET Economist Blog and taking online math classes to get ready for the “boot camp” experience awaiting them in the US or Europe.

Last week, I began to discuss the question of whether Francis Fukuyama’s hypothesis about convergence to liberal democracy and capitalism is at least partially right. While the countries of the world have not been moving towards democracy in the last 25 years, he could still be right that the future belongs to the markets. This week, however, I will argue that this is not the case.

In October, rental prices for residential properties in Tbilisi declined significantly in annual terms (-7.1%). Buyers tended to purchase cheaper, lower quality units in October relative to the previous month. Lower lending and deposit interest rates made real estate investments more attractive, driving rental prices for residential property downward.

Based on the data from August, the fifth update of the Q3 growth forecast was yet again revised downward from 3.7% to 2.2%. The second update of the growth forecast for the last quarter of 2014 was also revised from 1.7% down to 0.4%.