A long season of high–stakes elections in Georgia, Ukraine, and now the United States is finally over. Once the last campaign posters are taken down, we may as well start asking: now what? Whether we like to admit it or not, the success of democracy is probably ill measured by the show of competitive campaigns or the transparency of the voting system. Instead, the success largely depends on how informed and engaged in the political process the general public remains after the elections.
This is something Ukraine has discovered the hard way sinc...
ISET Economist Blog
A blog about economics in the South Caucasus.
Nov
09
Oct
03
The question of the title seems to be a rhetorical one. With the 2008 global financial crisis fresh in our minds, the logic of the vicious cycle between the economic slowdown, troubles in the banking sector, credit crunch, and the subsequent industrial decline reinforcing the credit conundrums seems quite apparent.
But are the recessions accompanied by financial crises different from other brands of recessions? And if so, how? The economists are yet to reach the ultimate verdict. And yet, this purely academic question comes to the fore of political...
Aug
30
The scars of the 2008 global financial crisis, and the festering wounds of the ongoing European debt crisis seem to have obscured one simple textbook truth: long-term economic development largely depends on the growth of the total factor productivity (TFP), sometimes referred to simply as the technological progress.
TFP, however, is an elusive phenomenon. This is usually the unexplained part of the output growth, the “residual” left over after we have accounted for all other known contributing factors. Another uncomfortable truth is that technologi...
Jun
28
I am writing this post in the wake of Florian Biermann’s excellent piece on the role of culture in the economic life of Georgia. The debate itself is infinitely fascinating, as culture is truly one of those complex, stupendously vast concepts, which I find very difficult to grasp, let alone define or analyze.
Cultural attitudes play a crucial role in the way human beings interact with one another, the way they define their values and priorities. From the economic perspective, culture has a significant bearing on the functioning and effectiveness of both ...
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