02
April
2014
On March 31, 2014, ISET hosted Dr. Joseph Tham of Duke University, who is currently collaborating with USAID Georgia. He provided a summary of the basic principles of project appraisal and discussed the applications of Cost-Benefit Analysis in the USAID/India Fiscal Management Reform Project.
01
April
2014
1 April 2014, ISET Economist's special correspondent in Geneva. The ISET Economist was invited to attend the signing ceremony concluding the last round of trilateral negotiations held in Geneva under the joint sponsorship of the Swiss Confederation, the US, Russia, and Turkey.
31
March
2014
At the end of Act 2 of Bertolt Brecht’s Three-Penny-Opera, the proletarian petty criminal Macheath, and his prostitute Jenny reply to the bourgeois representatives of the establishment urging them to uphold moral standards: “First comes a full stomach, then comes ethics!” This aphorism echoes the widely held contention that ethical behavior is a privilege of those who have satisfied their material needs.
31
March
2014
When Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovich decided not to sign the association agreement with the European Union and instead opted for a Russian package of long-term economic support, many Ukrainians perceived this not to be a purely economic decision. Rather, they feared this to be a renunciation of Western cultural and political values, and – to put it mildly – were not happy about this development.
28
March
2014
As Georgia embarks on an ambitious program to develop farmer organizations, it is worth considering both the positive and negative lessons from the experience of similar initiatives, both in Georgia and elsewhere in the developing/transition context. The piece by Tim Stewart, originally published on www.springfieldcentre.com, identifies some of the main reasons for the failure of start-up farmer organizations.
