From RFE/RL:
Cash remittances sent home by thousands of Armenians working in Russia and other countries increased by more than 23 percent in the first 10 months of this year compared to 2010, RFE/RL's Armenian Service reports.
While this sounds like unambiguously good news for Armenia, it is not. Remittances can have a very similar effect as natural resources wealth – it gives rise to what is called the Dutch Disease.
Both remittances and exports of natural resources result in an inflow of foreign currency into a country. While this ...
ISET Economist Blog
A blog about economics in the South Caucasus.
Dec
11
Dec
09
Twenty years ago, on 26 December 1991, USSR broke into 15 pieces, 15 independent states. Amid great hopes, each of these states embarked on a path of transition: from socialism, from one-party state system, from the relative security of a small city apartment, a dacha, and a Lada to… an uncertain future.
For the small Baltic pieces of the USSR puzzle, this road led to EU membership and all of the associated goodies. For many others, however, this may have been a “transition from nowhere to no place” (see the eponymous 2004 bestseller by my number one con...
Dec
07
This weekend we visited one of the more remote parts of Georgia, the Shiraki plains at the border to Azerbaijan. After passing through Dedoplis Tskaro, the district capital and largest town in this part of Georgia, we found ourselves on a bad road going all the way to the small town of Kasritstkali. In Soviet times the road was surfaced, but these days one has to navigate mud and large potholes. By all accounts the small town of Kasritstkali is thoroughly isolated from the rest of Georgia. And for what it matters, from Azerbaijan as well. Although the bo...
Dec
02
Recently, I attended a show by the famous Erisioni dancing group, which was performing in Georgia for the first time after two years of constant traveling abroad. The Georgian dancers in traditional costumes were sensational, but as an economist, a minor incident caught my attention nearly as much as the Erisioni ensemble. At the entrance, I was given a pamphlet which featured, on the back page, one of the most remarkable advertisements I had ever seen. A company called Magticom announced to be the first Georgian firm to have paid taxes to the ...
Nov
24
From Eurasianet:
In a historic first for Georgia, 12 men and women recently passed judgment in the country’s first jury trial, a grisly murder case. But the answer to whether or not jury trials will enhance the credibility of the country’s justice system remains to be seen.
A promising development, jury trials might help reduce the perception of a lack of judiciary independence in Georgia. A key aspect of well-working jury trials is a sufficiently large jury size. While it is tempting to reduce costs by having smaller juries, there is ample evidence...
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