In his blog post “The puzzle of agricultural productivity in Georgia and Armenia” , Adam Pellillo raises the following question:
Georgia seems to be the only former Soviet republic in which agricultural productivity hasn’t returned to or exceeded its level in 1992. As of 2010, agricultural productivity stood at only 77 percent of where it was at nearly two decades ago. Why hasn’t agricultural productivity improved in Georgia over the past two decades, while it has at least recovered in every other former Soviet republic? It is even more p...
ISET Economist Blog
A blog about economics in the South Caucasus.
Nov
26
Oct
22
Starting from October 15, Georgian consumers have to pay about 5-10 tetri more for one loaf of bread. Many large producers increased their prices; smaller bakeries (“tone”) followed suit by either raising the price or reducing the weight of the traditional Georgian bread. While unpleasant, this change in the price of bread is nothing but a forced reaction to a sharp increase (25%) in the price of wheat in the global commodity markets dating back to July 2012. The question, therefore, is not why bread and flour prices increased. Rather, it is why these po...
Jun
05
This week marks the first anniversary of the “ISET Khachapuri Index” in The Financial. During the last 12 months, our faithful readers have followed the ups and the downs of the index, and learned many economics lessons in the process.
The sharp seasonal fluctuations of the Khachapuri Index are very much reflective of the state of Georgian agriculture: fragmented, unorganized and underdeveloped. The roller coaster of agricultural production is no great fun for consumers and small Georgian farmers alike. When bringing their products to the bazari in high...
Our Partners
