During the past 18 months, Georgian consumers have been enjoying an unprecedented period of price stability. Ever since May 2011, when inflation peaked given the state of frenzy in the global commodity markets, inflation has literally come to a halt: since early 2012, monthly inflation rates are fluctuating around the zero trend. In fact, Consumer Price Index (CPI) is slightly lower today (153) than in January 2012 (153.8), and only 0.1% higher than in October 2011 (152.8).
THE STORM IS COMING!
A spate of worrisome news is hitting the Georgian media sin...
ISET Economist Blog
A blog about economics in the South Caucasus.
Nov
12
Nov
09
A long season of high–stakes elections in Georgia, Ukraine, and now the United States is finally over. Once the last campaign posters are taken down, we may as well start asking: now what? Whether we like to admit it or not, the success of democracy is probably ill measured by the show of competitive campaigns or the transparency of the voting system. Instead, the success largely depends on how informed and engaged in the political process the general public remains after the elections.
This is something Ukraine has discovered the hard way sinc...
Nov
02
I am not addicted to TV but I found myself sitting in front of the TV almost 24 hours a day before the 2012 Georgian parliamentary elections. I considered myself a rational consumer of information, so it was surprising that was unable to resist the temptation to watch a channel presenting quite slanted opinions. My previously apolitical friends were experiencing the same phenomena. This post is reflection of this. How is it that rational consumers of information like me could come to be consciously watching politically slanted news? How and why was the G...
Oct
26
As Harry S Truman once noted – “It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose your own”. While Georgia was able to grow its economy, this growth did not trickle all the way down. The overall number of jobs did not increase, resulting in very high unemployment, especially among youth and recent university graduates (up to 35% according to some counts).
Unemployment hurts the individuals involved and the economy as a whole. As an individual you lose income, and still worth, may see your value in the labor market (...
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