On Monday, March 6 ISET hosted its graduate Robizon Khubulashvili, a Ph.D. Student of Pennsylvania State University. Robizon presented his working paper entitled “Endogenous Team Formation Among Competitors”.

The above quote seems to fit the state of affairs in the European Union fairly well, as the EU’s crisis is continuing, getting deeper, and engulfing more actors than when it started. To name a few well-known events and stats: Greece probably had the first meaningful kick-off in the chain of developments when it faced threats to stability in its own financial system at the end of 2009. At that time, an unreported estimated deficit jumped from 7% of GDP to the first 13%, and then stabilized at 15% as the "new normal."

On Wednesday, March 1, ISET hosted an 'Information Session' with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) on "What a Career in ADB Entails". Mr. Toshio Oya, the ADB's Director-General of the Budget, Personnel, and Management Systems Department led the session.

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.

The Georgian Business Confidence Index (BCI) continues to decline, albeit at a slower pace. The first-quarter decrease in the Index was mostly driven by a significant decline in past performance.