Professor, Department of Economics, Hebrew University
Michael studied at the London School of Economics. Since 1989 he has been Pinhas Sapir Professor of Economics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Prior to that, he held academic appointments at the London Business School and City University, and professional appointments at the World Bank and the UK Treasury. He has consulted widely but particularly with public sector organizations.
His research interests include applied econometrics in the areas of labour, macroeconomics and energy. He currently teaches first degree courses in macroeconomics and econometrics, and a postgraduate course in the econometric analysis of time series. He has written 7 books on topics including macroeconomics, the world economy and economic development, as well as 100 refereed journal articles. One of his earliest papers was on the economics of corruption (World Development, 1976).
Lead Modeller, Bank of England
At ISET Andrei helped building and enhancing the statistical engine behind LEI, the Leading Economic Indicators report. He was also the lead author for the 2013 Competitiveness Report for Georgia. Andrei has also been a member of the Bank for International Settlements Research Task Force, a deputy editor of the UNDP bulletin “Development and Transition”, and has co-written a University of London study guide.
Chair of Policy Expert Committee
Robert Tchaidze holds Ph.D. in Economics from the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. He also holds M.A. in Economics from the New Economic School, Moscow, Russia and Diploma (M.A. equivalent) in Mathematics from the Tbilisi State University, Tbilisi, Georgia. His research interests are macroeconomics and in particular, monetary economics.
He taught at ISET in 2007-09 and, since 2012 has been chairing the Policy Expert Committee of ISET-PI in his personal capacity.
Former Chairman of the Board Former WB country director, Georgia
Roy Southworth is a co-founder of the McLain Association for Children (MAC) and an economist, who is currently retired after a 30 year career with the World Bank. Prior to becoming involved with MAC, he was the country manager for the World Bank office in Georgia. He has also been involved with numerous other assignments with the World Bank and other organizations in Africa, Europe, and Asia. His interests for MAS include advocacy, capacity building, and micro-financing.
Mr. Southworth has had a long career in the Bank, joining in 1979 as an agricultural economist, and has worked throughout Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia. He completed field assignments in Tanzania and Croatia before coming to Georgia in January 2004. Mr. Southworth graduated with High Honors from Washington State University with a BA in Economics. After a stint in Peace Corps in Ethiopia he attended Stanford University where he earned a PhD from the Food Research Institute. Mr. Southworth has extensive experience in the development, implementation and evaluation of investment operations in agriculture and rural development. Since 2001 he has been working on country operations and management of field offices in the Europe and Central Asia Region.
PMCG Business Development Director
Mr. Lasha Meskhia is a Business Development Director at Policy and Management Consulting Group - PMCG, international development consulting company based in Tbilisi, Georgia. He is in charge of project management, developing the strategic plan, action plan, business expansion strategy, identification of new markets and product opportunities, product development, managing company representatives at various locations and working on improving management processes and procedures of the company.
He joined the organization in late 2008 as a Public Finance Management and organizational development specialist and has been involved in various development projects with public sector institutions.
He holds Masters’ Degree in Economics from International School of Economics (ISET) at TSU, Bachelor’s Diploma in Finance and Banking and Diploma in Jurisprudence from the Tbilisi State University (part time studies). He fluently speaks Georgian and English languages.
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