02
March
2016
According to Geostat estimates, Georgia’s annual real GDP growth in 2015 was 2.8%. ISET-PI’s annual GDP growth forecast of 2.9% annual growth (since September 2015) thus turned out to be quite accurate, just 0.1 percentage points above the official estimate.
22
February
2016
Just like Duddy Kravitz, Georgian men (and women) appear to be reluctant to part with their parcels of land, however small and unproductive. Whatever the reason, Georgia sees almost no structural change out of agriculture, and, as a result, very low productivity and income growth for the poorest strata of its population. As of today, employment (or, rather, under-employment) in agriculture is a staggering 45% of Georgia’s total labor force.
22
February
2016
The year 2015 was one of turbulence. It was a year in which the institutional foundations of the Georgian economy were tested. However, as our analysis shows, the country’s macroeconomic institutions exhibited remarkable resilience in the face of various shocks. This bodes well for future growth prospects. Thus, in the spirit of Lewis Carroll’s adage “take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves” we can give one piece of advice to Georgian policymakers: take care of the foundations, and the facade will take care of itself.
05
February
2016
ISET is happy to announce that David Shavgulidze from Class of 2013 has been recently promoted as the head of the newly established IT Audit Unit at the State Audit Office of Georgia (SAOG); David’s professional growth at the SAOG is rather impressive – he started as an intern and got promoted twice in a two-year period.
03
February
2016
On 1-2 February, Yaroslava Babych, head of Macroeconomic Policy Research Center participated in an international forum – “The Prospects of Georgia’s Democratic and Economic Development” organized by the Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI), in partnership with the University of Bremen and with the financial support of the Federal Foreign Office of Germany.
