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.

The aim of the project by ISET-PI, TNS, and TBC bank was to find out the level of financial literacy in Georgia. 1000 respondents were surveyed in the biggest cities of Georgia. The project is divided in three parts dealing with finance, trust in financial institutions, and financial literacy, in order to investigate Georgian citizens' behavior.

Here is a question that has bothered me for a while and I am surprised that nobody else seems to have asked it before: How comes Western countries had the better orchestras (collectives) and the Soviet Union the better classical music soloists during the Cold War? Would one not expect the contrary?

At ISET we teach graduate economics, which uses the mathematical language to analyze economic behavior (“microeconomics”) and macroeconomic systems. Being based in Tbilisi, we heavily depend on “upstream” Georgian educational institutions, such as schools and undergraduate departments at TSU and elsewhere.

“Shock and awe” is a US military term describing the use of overwhelming power to demoralize the enemy, as applied by the American military in Iraq. “Shock and awe” would also aptly describe my emotional state when I entered, at the age of 23, the magnificent reading room at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. This was the moment when I – a former paratrooper and an officer with one of Israel’s security services – understood how badly I want to acquire an education. Not technical knowledge or skills, but an education.