On November 18th, ISET hosted Principle Economist of Asian Development Bank, Dr. Donghyun Park, who gave a presentation on Inequality, Inclusive Growth, and Fiscal Policy in Asia.

It is easy to understand what it means for an economy to be weak or strong. We know that a strong economy is characterized by low unemployment and high growth rates. Other desirable traits are, for example, low levels of poverty and income inequality, when all citizens enjoy reasonable standards of living.

According to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, the word gay refers to a cheerful, lively, and high-spirited person. The LGBT Prague Pride Parade, which I was fortunate to observe on my recent visit to Prague, lived to the very definition of the word. What I saw was fabulous: unicorns and countless rainbow-colored flags, balloons, and thousands of exalted people dancing and singing in the middle of Wenceslas Square.

The main purpose of the consultancy was to contribute to the elaboration of the Population Situation Analysis (PSA) section on Socio-Economic Context in Georgia. The Government of Georgia (GOG) and the Prime Minister have announced addressing demographic challenges as a top priority of the country. UNFPA was asked to support undertaking the Population Situation Analysis (PSA) in Georgia, in order to generate evidence regarding demographic situation that would be further used for elaboration of the Demographic Strategic Plan for Georgia.

In the first part of this article, I described some of the adverse incentives resulting from a social welfare system. Then I argued that according to Simon Kuznets' famous paradigm, increasing inequality is hardly evitable when a country enters a growth trajectory (as Georgia did in 2003), and I reasoned that it is at least an ambivalent (not to say questionable) policy for Georgia, at its current state of development, to fight inequality by social welfare measures. In this vein, the article seemed to advocate that Georgia might better follow the “Asian” approach of “develop first, redistribute later”.