For the first time in history, the price of Bitcoin broke its highest record (Figure 1) rising above 2,900 USD during the last week of June, 2017. One of the reasons why the market unexpectedly became optimistic about Bitcoin could be the fact that in April, the Japanese government formally accepted1 the cryptocurrency as a mean of exchange, which gave it more validity in Asia’s richest economy.

On April 10, ISET students delivered yet another policy seminar. A presentation entitled “Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) & Economic Growth. Case of Georgia” was delivered by Givi Gujaraidze, Tinatin Mumladze, Kristine Gureshidze, and Shota Bakhuashvili under the supervision of Eric Livny, President of ISET, and Yaroslava Babych, Head of Macroeconomic Policy Research Center at ISET Policy Institute.

The Education Policy Forum (EPF) will generate a debate and communicate critical analyses regarding the government priorities and investments in education.

It is widely recognized that education is the key to the future. In general, educated people have higher earnings and lower unemployment rates and highly-educated countries grow faster and innovate more than the other countries. Therefore, in the recent economic literature, education is considered as an investment good and look for the other investments, there are the costs and benefits of the investments in the education.

Economic reforms announced in the run-up to the parliamentary elections in October 2016 raised concerns about whether Georgia was departing from its path of prudent fiscal policy. A reform of the corporate profit tax and increased infrastructure investment were driving expectations of a 6% of GDP budget deficit in 2017, endangering Georgia’s macroeconomic stability and its reputation with investors.