ISET

ISET Economist Blog

A blog about economics in the South Caucasus.
Jan
09

Snobbism and Status Concerns – Primitives of Georgian Socio-historical Psychology and Their Economic Implications

A bit of history: In 1905, Max Weber, in his masterpiece, “The Protestant Ethics and Spirit of Capitalism”, proposed an interesting hypothesis which claimed that Protestantism, Calvinism and Puritan ethics influenced development of capitalism. Since, Catholic Church rejected worldly affairs and constantly preached for its parish that the goal of existence is afterlife rather than life itself, it also implied rejection of pursuit of wealth and possession. Starting from the 17th century, emergence of various Protestant church movements, first in Engla...
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Dec
24

Celebrating the New Year. With an Extra Layer of Cheese

  This is the last issue of the Khachapuri Index column in 2012 (#44 this year and #74 overall since the project’s launch in June 2011). Therefore, we would like to wish our readers many causes for magnificent Georgian supras in the new 2013, with a lot of khachapuri and wine. The ISET Khachapuri Index is based on the prices of six ingredients used to cook the Imeretian khachapuri, which is considered to be the most common in Georgia. However, Imereti has no monopoly on khachapuri and most other Georgian regions have their own traditional recipes an...
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Dec
22

Money Can Buy Me Love, In The Caucasus

This blog post is a sequel to “Price of a Woman: Economic Rationale behind Marriage Payments in Georgia”. I recently found very interesting data about bride prices in the Georgian highlands and the North Caucasus, which I am now going to share with you. Payment to a bride's parents was widespread in the Georgian highlands and the North Caucasus. This custom was rooted in local traditions and everyone obeyed it. Bride prices were either paid in money or its equivalent in livestock, most commonly in oxen. The price would vary according to the social standi...
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Dec
19

Detecting Tourism Bottlenecks

Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index of UN (T&T CI) ranked Georgia 73, in 2011. With this rank, Georgia topped South Caucasus region nevertheless, maintaining the same rank as in 2009. This could mean that not much had improved during those three years in terms of competitiveness of Georgia as a brand in the business of tourism. Looking at the data on international tourist arrivals and international tourism receipts – they both have been steadily increasing since 2000. From the first glance this upward trend seems promising. We have more tourist...
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