10
February
2014
Over the winter holidays, I had the leisure to read the book “Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty” by MIT economist Daron Acemoglu and Harvard political scientist James A. Robinson (Crown Business 2012, 544 pages, Hardcover $20.00). Both authors are very eminent – one would not be surprised if Acemoglu, a Turkish-born Armenian and the most frequently cited contemporary economist, would receive the Nobel Prize in economics somewhere down the road.
06
February
2014
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.
03
February
2014
The value of a currency, measured in terms of other currencies, has consequences for the real economy. A more expensive lari, for example, makes it more profitable to import goods into Georgia. The importer has to pay the foreign goods with foreign currency, and when the lari is more valuable, fewer lari is needed to pay for them.
31
January
2014
Fight of the Century? Well, that was Joe Frazier against Muhammad Ali, New York 1971, right? Wrong! For an economist, the Fight of the Century refers to the intellectual debate between the illustrious economists, John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) and Friedrich August Hayek (1899-1992). A battle at least as hot as the boxing fight, if not even much hotter!
26
January
2014
Last week I discussed the economic consequences of inequality. Contrary to a traditional tenet of economics, empirical research has shown that inequality may have adverse economic consequences. Inequality increases the risk of political instability in a country, posing a threat to investments due to the fact that political unrest is highly detrimental to the profits made from any economic activity.
