On April 7, 2014, ISET hosted Dr. Aleksandr Grigoryan from the American University of Armenia, who presented his paper “Who else emigrates from Armenia? Evidence from intentions”. The paper addressed two main questions: what influences decision-making as to whether to migrate? What was the main trend during recent years?

For some years, Azerbaijan experiences an immigration wave. Chart 1 shows the net immigration (immigration minus emigration) to Azerbaijan during the last 22 years. As can be seen, every year since 2008 more people are immigrating to Azerbaijan than there are emigrating. In 2012, for instance, 2000 net migrants came to Azerbaijan.

Georgia has one of the most liberal immigration policies worldwide. Everybody can enter Georgia with an airport visa that is valid for one year. Permanent residency status is granted as soon as one has found employment.

As you can see, and contrary to widespread perceptions, there is no significant augmentation of the urban areas' population in Georgia in the last two decades or so.

After the break-up of the Soviet Union, Georgia went through a process of civil war and economic collapse. Official estimates suggest that Georgia’s GDP shrunk by more than 70% between 1990 and1994.