ISET

ISET Economist Blog

A blog about economics in the South Caucasus.

Maka Chitanava holds BA in State and Municipal Governance from Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University (TSU) and MA in Economics from ISET. She has been with ISET and ISET-Policy Institute since 2008. Currently Ms. Chitanava is senior researcher and is involved in a variety of policy research projects, focused on social policy analysis and regulation.
Apart from the research she is delivering trainings on a variety of public policy issues and is visiting lecturer at University of Georgia. Courses taught by her are: Principles of Micro and Macroeconomics, Fiscal Decentralization and Local Economic Development, History of Economic Thought. Ms. Chitanava is regular blogger at the ISET Economist Blog.

Jul
11

Overworked and Underpaid

WORKING OVERTIME…  In 2014, 22% of the Georgia’s working adults reported having worked more than 40 hour per week, i.e. working overtime. This many not sound like a lot, but, as any average figure, it hides a great deal of geographic variation in the incidence of overtime work. Very few people work overtime in places where there are almost no jobs, such as Kakheti or Racha. Conversely, more than 50% work over 8 hours/day in the dynamically developing Tbilisi, and as many as 44% in the adjacent Kvemo Kartli.  With so many people doing it, ...
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Apr
20

Save the Mingrelian Language!

There are clear expectations in many cultures to marry somebody from their own group, and not living up to these expectations will at least cause a loss in reputation. This is nicely displayed in the movie Late Marriage by Dover Kosashvili, humorously depicting a young Georgian Jew in Israel whose parents want him to marry the “right” woman (the movie features extensive dialogues in Judeao-Georgian, another endangered language). Why are these sanctions imposed on people who want to marry an “outsider”? There is a simple answer to that question: without t...
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Feb
10

David the Economist (Repost from July 5th, 2013)

  In 1122, King David IV. reconquered Tbilisi from the Muslims. In those times, a bloodbath among the former oppressors would have been the logical consequence of such a victory. Leaders of the High Middle Ages took merciless revenge against their enemies once they had defeated them. Yet David did not! To the contrary, he did not only let the former rulers live, but David was even anxious that the Muslim population might leave Tbilisi after the fall of the city. In order to send a strong signal of appreciation and friendship to the Muslim population...
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Dec
19

Bringing Light to Georgia’s Darkest Corners

Nodar Dumbadze has a reputation for bringing tears and laughs out of his readers. Yet, when watching his “Hellados” performed in the tiny municipal “Culture House” in Terjola, we were laughing and crying not only in appreciation of Dumbadze's rare ability to weave tragedy and comedy into a single narrative. We were certainly moved by Dumbadze’s story of teenagers growing up in the tough multiethnic environment of Sukhumi, the love-hate relationship between the Georgian Jemal and the Greek Ianguli, and their ultimate love for their homeland. But, perhaps ...
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