12
September
2016
The economic significance of bees extends far beyond honey production. As the National Resource Defense Council writes in 2011 (“Why We Need Bees: Nature’s Tiny Workers Put Food on Our Tables”), the value of the honey that bees produced in the US in that year amounted to 150 million dollars, while the value of the harvested crops that were pollinated by bees was 15 billion dollars, i.e., greater by a factor of 100! Having bees around is not primarily beneficial for the beekeepers, but even more for anyone else who grows crops, fruits, or vegetables.
08
September
2016
On Wednesday, September 7, ISET hosted Dr. Jon Hanf, Head of the Wine Economics Program at Geisenheim University, Germany, who spoke about the prospects of Georgian wine in the highly competitive German market.
05
September
2016
Starting from October 1, 2017, a private retirement savings system will be launched in Georgia as part of broader pension reform. This reform has been discussed by Nino Doghonadze and Yaroslava Babych in Decent Income in Old Age: Georgian Dream or Reality? on the ISET Economist. Today we will focus only on one very interesting aspect of the reform – the “opt-out” principle and its implementation in the Georgian realities.
11
July
2016
In 2014, 22% of Georgia’s working adults reported having worked more than 40 hours per week, i.e. working overtime. This may not sound like a lot, but, as an average figure, it hides a great deal of geographic variation in the incidence of overtime work. Very few people work overtime in places where there are almost no jobs, such as Kakheti or Racha. Conversely, more than 50% work over 8 hours/day in the dynamically developing Tbilisi, and as many as 44% in the adjacent Kvemo Kartli.
11
July
2016
In June 2016, the average cost of cooking one standard Imeretian khachapuri increased to 3.12 GEL, which is 1.5% higher month-on-month (m/m, that is compared to May 2016), but 9.6% higher year-on-year (y/y, compared to June 2015).
