Women are generally under-represented in political offices worldwide, and their under-representation becomes larger in more senior positions. In the first brief, the author reviews some recent academic literature in economics and political science on the likely causes of women’s under-representation. Broadly speaking, the literature has divided such causes into “supply-side” and “demand-side” factors.

This paper analyses income distribution and poverty reduction in Georgia in the period 2010 to 2017/2018. As we have no data for 2019, our findings do not relate to the most recent distributional policies of the Georgian government. Our results suggest that while Georgia has substantially reduced poverty and income inequality, continuous monitoring of the situation would be helpful.

Georgia experienced a significant rise in Sex Ratio at Birth (SRB1) after its independence from the Soviet Union. Currently, it is among twelve countries worldwide where sex imbalances at birth have been observed. The other countries are Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, China, Hong Kong (SAR of China), India, the Republic of Korea, Montenegro, Taiwan (Province of China), Tunisia, and Vietnam.

On November 15-16, 2019, FREE Network and ISET Policy Institute organized and conducted an international gender economics conference in Tbilisi, Georgia1. The conference brought together researchers, policy-makers, and the broader development community to discuss obstacles to gender equality and women’s economic empowerment, and policies to remove the existing constraints, focusing on Eastern Europe and Emerging Economies.

On January 15, ISET had the privilege to host a living economic legend when Professor Erik S. Reinert visited the institute to participate in the Georgian-language launch of his book, How Rich Countries Got Rich, and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor. His work, which was originally published in 2007, has now been published in over twenty languages and remains one of the most widely-discussed economic works of recent years.