Measuring economic developments is often a laborious business. Consider, for example, the Consumer Price Index (CPI). One first has to define the so called consumption basket that contains the goods and services whose prices you want to track. These goods and services have to be represented in the basket in the right proportions, reflecting the consumption patterns of an average consumer. Unfortunately, consumption habits change over time, and product characteristics change even more. A personal computer 10 years ago is obviously a very different object ...
ISET Economist Blog
A blog about economics in the South Caucasus.
Sep
23
Sep
21
Few events in Georgian history had consequences that were as far-reaching as the infamous Treaty of Georgievsk of 1783. In the end of the 18th century, Erekle II. (1720-1798) handed over his kingdom of Kakheti and Kartli to the Russians, aligning the fates of Georgia and Russia for the next two centuries. In the middle of what today is called the Age of Imperialism, when European countries, including Russia, were dividing the globe among themselves, Georgia was offered to Catherine the Great on a plate. Of course, she did not reject.
Being a colony of a ...
Sep
16
Recently, I was made aware of an article by the famous Harvard economist Gregory N. Mankiw ("Defending the One Percent’’, The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2013). In that article, he puts forward an interesting thought experiment. Assume we were in a state in which the market outcome would lead to absolute equality among economic agents. There was no need for redistribution, as anybody would get the same share of the pie anyway, and a lump-sum tax would finance government expenditures (which were still needed, as there is a demand for public goods). ...
Sep
06
In the early 1980’s, Soviet engineers drove a prospection tunnel into Sakdrissi hillock close to the small town of Kazreti, about 50 kilometers south of Tbilisi. Much to their surprise, they discovered that the hillock already bore a labyrinth of tunnels, and, as quickly became clear, these tunnels were manmade. An old gold mine had been discovered.
25 years later, a Georgian-German team of archaeologists excavated the site and reopened the ancient entrance to the mining complex. Inside the tunnels and around the entrance they found plenty of artefacts o...
Our Partners
