This research aims to explain how Georgia’s economic development in the past 12-15 years took place despite the absence of rural-urban migration, defying the predictions of the Lewis Model - one of the most influential theories in development economics.

On June 7, during his visit to Georgia, Mr. Anthony De Lannoy, the Executive Director of the IMF who represents Georgia along with the other 15 countries at the IMF Board of Directors, addressed an audience of ISET researchers, students, and management, as well as senior representatives of the National Bank of Georgia, with an overview of the IMF and its cooperation with Georgia.

As economic development progresses, air pollution and the lack of green spaces have become increasingly painful issues for Tbilisi citizens. In our previous blog, Breathing in Tbilisi, we discussed the negative outcomes – in terms of air pollution and tree-cutting – generated by the actions of self-interested developers facing an inert civil society and a local government that is unwilling and/or unable to protect the green public spaces.

Structural transformation of the economy is one of the most important determinants of economic development. Almost invariably, nations that have managed to pull themselves out of poverty were able to diversify their economies away from low productivity sectors. In advanced countries, productivity differences between sectors are generally small, and growth mostly happens because of productivity improvements within sectors.

Using the panel data on the German and Ukrainian labor markets, Prof. Pignatti and his co-authors Thomas Dohmen (University of Bonn, Maastricht University, IZA and DIW, Berlin) and Hartmut Lehmann (University of Bologna, IZA and DIW, Berlin) show that risk attitudes have permanent (exogenous) determinants that are valid at different stages of economic development and in different structural contexts.