Most development practitioners subscribe to the view that vibrant small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs) are crucial for the health of a country’s economy. The SME sector is crucial, the argument goes because it creates employment and serves as a hotbed of entrepreneurial talent. Additionally, SMEs are often seen as a source of new, fast-growing industries, contributing to a price-reducing and quality-improving competition with large and old firms that tend to dominate markets in small countries such as Georgia.

On Tuesday, April 7th, ISET hosted Professor Giorgio Brunello from the University of Padova. Prof. Brunello presented his recent paper titled "Pappa Ante Portas: The Retired Husband Syndrome in Japan”, which he collaborated with his colleague Professor Marco Bertoni.

Tobacco consumption is widely known for its negative effects on health. According to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention, just in the USA, an estimated 443,000 people die per year prematurely due to inhaling cigarette smoke. As there are 46 million smokers in the USA, it means that in any given year, the likelihood to “die prematurely” because of one’s smoking habit is almost 1% (under the admittedly strong assumption that these numbers are constant in the long run). If one smokes for 10 years, the probability that one’s life will be cut short goes up to 9%.

So far, many Georgians solved minor health problems in a non-bureaucratic way. Instead of consulting doctors, they asked friends, relatives, and the internet what medicine should be taken as a remedy for a given issue. Once they had received enough information, they went to a pharmacy, and, with some additional advice from the pharmacist, bought the medicine they expected to be helpful.

The ISET Policy Institute (ISET-PI) was commissioned by the World Bank to assist the Social Service Agency (SSA) of Georgia, an agency of the Ministry of Labor, Health, and Social Affairs (MoLHSA), in setting up a system for providing job seekers with vocational and educational training (VET). The project had two specific goals.