On the first of January, Armenia will adopt an entirely new pension system. This radical reform addresses two problems: widespread poverty among the elderly and a lack of capital in the economy. The very same problems also exist in Georgia, where the standard governmental pension currently is 150 lari, and where the economy is suffering from high capital costs due to notoriously low saving rates. So, it is worthwhile to have a look at what is going on in our neighboring country Armenia. Georgian decision makers may learn important lessons from their expe...
ISET Economist Blog
A blog about economics in the South Caucasus.
Dec
20
Dec
16
While ISET’s Khachapuri Index continues to climb up in a perfectly predictable fashion – driven by the seasonal increase in the price of cheese – a bit of drama is being provided by the ups and downs in the price of eggs. According to ISET data, egg prices, which for a couple of years hovered around 29 tetri a piece, suddenly collapsed in June and July 2013 to a minimum of about 26 tetri. A month later, however, egg prices started increasing in a very sharp manner, reaching an all time high of more than 32 tetri in October. In November egg prices stabili...
Dec
13
For many observers, the Georgian job market is a mystery. Companies are bitterly complaining about a lack of engineers, forcing them to withhold the expansion of production capacities and to cut down investments. Yet Georgian young people, who could make good fortunes by studying technical subjects, prefer to learn law, business administration and the like, qualifications that are oversupplied in the market and on average do not yield high salaries.
Young Georgians, lacking information on what sells well in the job market, apply a simple decision rule ca...
Dec
09
When a country engages in scientific research, the fruits are harvested by the whole of humanity. Fundamental research, generating knowledge without direct applications but needed for developing applications, is published in international scientific journals open to everybody. A society can exploit this knowledge without having to pay royalties or patent fees, and, most importantly, without investing in its own research facilities.
Yet even the results of applied research can hardly be monopolized. The economic fortunes of some Asian countries, in partic...
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