I have snapped the picture above in one of Tbilisi’s main streets. To the economist’s eye, however, this picture should be disturbing. While the general observer will see clean and wide sidewalks, beautiful classical style buildings, and a single pedestrian in this early hour of the day, one also sees two adjacent currency exchange booths (Lombardi, as they are called here). The nearer sign shows that they buy $100 for 165.2 GEL, and sell $100 for 165.6 GEL—ignore the listed Euro exchange rate for the sake of this illustration. The farther sign shows res...
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