In technological terms, there has never been a better time to be a small or medium size business owner: people can always get ahold of you and you can work wherever you need to. Creating an additional source of income catches people’s interests all over the world; as an additional motivation, we often hear about the launch of yet another program directly helping these businesses, thus making it easier to become a start-upper. And here, the rhetorical question: “why not?!” pops into some people’s minds. Starting a small or medium size enterprise (SME) ser...
ISET Economist Blog
A blog about economics in the South Caucasus.
Jun
14
Apr
26
Various business support programs have been implemented in many countries across the world. Grants, interest-rate subsidies, and equity participation are among some of the most adopted tools for promoting firms’ performances (Dupont and Martin, 2006). Such assistance programs also have their own objectives. For example, low-interest rate loans and cash transfers to new and small firms are designed to overcome the financial constraints many firms face (Hubbard, 1998). Moreover, these programs may aim to help firms adopt new technologies (Bronzini and Pise...
Jun
01
Most development practitioners subscribe to the view that vibrant small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs) are crucial for the health of a country’s economy. The SME sector is crucial, the argument goes, because it creates employment and serves as a hotbed of entrepreneurial talent. Additionally, SMEs are often seen as a source of new, fast growing industries, contributing to a price-reducing and quality-improving competition with large and old firms that tend to dominate markets in small countries such as Georgia.
For example, a 2011 report prepa...
Recent Comments
Rezo Vashakidze's statement about 50% of the population being smallholder farmers is out of date. According to the last census, on... Read More
Monday, 01 June 2015 9:09 AM
The point I was trying to make in this article – but perhaps failed – is NOT that Georgia does not need SMEs. My point is that the... Read More
Monday, 01 June 2015 12:12 PM
1. I do agree that distribution of subsidies to agriculture subsistence farmers has nothing to do with productivity growth and job... Read More
Monday, 01 June 2015 2:02 PM
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