Just recently, a rare occurrence made the headlines in Georgia: Moody’s Investors Service upgraded the government of Georgia’s local and foreign currency issuer ratings first time in seven years, to Ba2 from Ba3, with commentary that the outlook remains stable. This news was met with great excitement, but was soon overshadowed by the unfortunate news of Georgia’s downgrade on the Global Competitiveness Indicators, without fully appreciating or understanding the significance of the Moody's upgrade.
SO WHAT IS IT ALL ABOUT?
Moody's Investors Service provid...
ISET Economist Blog
A blog about economics in the South Caucasus.
Oct
09
Feb
27
Have you ever heard about a mysterious law that predicts the size of a city? If you tell me the population of the largest city in a country, I can tell you the size of the second and third biggest cities. In 1949, George Zipf came up with the simple theory called the rank-size rule, or “Zipf 's law.” Applied to the size of cities, this law says that the second city and following smaller cities should represent a proportion of the largest city. For example, if the largest city in a country is populated with one million citizens, according to the law, the ...
Recent Comments
Thank you, Florian for your comment. There is of course no official statistics about affiliation of migrants from Kutaisi. It cou... Read More
Wednesday, 01 March 2017 3:03 PM
Interesting article. Maybe the 30% of Kutaisis population that left the city were the members of the Kutaisi Clan.
Wednesday, 01 March 2017 8:08 AM
Thank you, Simon for interesting point about British Empire. I agree that Zipf s law might hold for the period you referred to. As... Read More
Wednesday, 01 March 2017 3:03 PM
Feb
18
Premise: I have to admit from the beginning that I am not married myself, thus what is written below is an outsider’s insights into explaining the phenomena of marriage.
Marriage is a phenomenon strongly intertwined within our culture and everyday life. It is almost a “must do” thing in Georgian traditional society, and it has to be approved either by religious authority or by the state, or both. A recent study about Georgian youth entitled “Generation in Transition, Youth Study Georgia – 2016” by the Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung, shows the 14-29 age ...
Recent Comments
Dear Eric,
Thank you for your interesting comment. Questions you raise are very interesting ones, but I do not have answers. Will ... Read More
Thursday, 23 February 2017 8:08 AM
When economists start analyzing love and marriages...
A great, thought provoking peace, Maka! Let me comment from the perspective... Read More
Thursday, 23 February 2017 4:04 AM
Dear Archil,
Thank you for your comment and welcome to the world of “family economics”
Thursday, 23 February 2017 8:08 AM
May
15
Here is a question that has bothered me for a while and I am surprised that nobody else seems to have asked it before:
How comes Western countries had the better orchestras (collectives) and Soviet Union the better classical music soloists during the Cold War? Would one not expect the contrary? And, perhaps more importantly: can economists learn something relevant from this observation?
MUSIC AND SPORTS
There were great orchestras both in the East and in the West and one could argue endlessly who were the greatest soloists. However, Van Cliburn is still ...
Recent Comments
I would agree with Gia that such a sweeping generalization may be difficult to defend. The individualistic West produced plenty of... Read More
Friday, 15 May 2015 2:02 PM
Interesting viewpoint, however I would restrain from generalizations. In terms of orchestras, for instance it is a well known fact... Read More
Friday, 15 May 2015 12:12 PM
Yes, you highlight some of the very best parts of Communism. What was wrong was the unaccountability of the oligarchy, and the des... Read More
Friday, 15 May 2015 8:08 PM
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