On Tuesday, October 27th, ISET hosted Zurab Tchiaberashvili, former Mayor of Tbilisi, former Minister of Health and Social Affairs of Georgia, and current professor at Ilia State University. Mr. Tchiaberashvili delivered a presentation titled “Healthcare in Georgia: Challenges Ahead.”

The report "Financial Soundness Indicators for Sector Stability in Georgia" provides an overview of the health of the Georgian financial sector and the key challenges it faces. Over the medium term, to increase domestic savings, reduce borrowing cost, and improve the credit risk, the report recommends facilitating property registration, improving the credit information-sharing mechanism, ensuring the security of bank deposits, and legislating improvements in reporting standards for firms.

According to a recent study, smoking marijuana for many years leads to a severe loss of intelligence: compared with people who did not consume cannabis, the IQ’s of smokers were lower by 13-38 points (Meier et al.: “Persistent cannabis users show neuropsychological decline from childhood to midlife”, PNAS 109, 2012). Moreover, after a long time of consumption, cognitive abilities and memory do not recover when smoking marijuana is eventually given up.

Most development practitioners subscribe to the view that vibrant small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs) are crucial for the health of a country’s economy. The SME sector is crucial, the argument goes because it creates employment and serves as a hotbed of entrepreneurial talent. Additionally, SMEs are often seen as a source of new, fast-growing industries, contributing to a price-reducing and quality-improving competition with large and old firms that tend to dominate markets in small countries such as Georgia.

On Tuesday, April 7th, ISET hosted Professor Giorgio Brunello from the University of Padova. Prof. Brunello presented his recent paper titled "Pappa Ante Portas: The Retired Husband Syndrome in Japan”, which he collaborated with his colleague Professor Marco Bertoni.