Trend data is fun. You can see a population’s thought evolving, and at the same time try to understand the reasons and develop your own perspective. I am privileged to be the country director for one of the world’s largest and most
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In my Soviet childhood, I clearly remember very few, if any, of my friends, neighbors or schoolmates being interested in politics. To inspire our interest, we had only two TV channels and a few newspapers with easily predictable political content. Nevertheless, interesting
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For the first decade of the 21st century, the economic story of the Caucasus and Central Asia (CCA) region was, for the most part, a successful one. Growth was strong, inflation was down, and meaningful progress was being made toward reducing poverty.
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The FINANCIAL -- Energy security is an integral part of national security. That is why it is important that the risks of suspension or cease of energy supplies are subject to control and do not cause critical threats to the country. The
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The FINANCIAL -- Tbilisi’s heavily jammed traffic is infuriatingly worrisome, and it leaves no one indifferent, not even the pedestrians. No, I should have said, especially the pedestrians. Due to alarmingly high air contamination levels, humming “all I need is the air
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The gloomy portrait of the Middle East today should not obscure that peace is achievable. The basic premise for any such peace must be to preserve the territorial integrity of states. This means countering all forces that exist only to pursue their
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The FINANCIAL -- Back in 1991, I attended a big “Whither Socialism” conference hosted by my alma mater, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. A session I remember most vividly featured a Hungarian dissident, a poet, telling stories about the ineffectiveness of communist propaganda.
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The FINANCIAL -- In January 2018, an IMF Working Paper published new results on the shadow economy situation for 158 countries from 1991 to 2015.
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The FINANCIAL -- Interest in bank profitability is increasing every year. Google search data for Georgia shows that in 2017, there were 4,700 pieces (articles, blogs, comments and other documents) found for “Banks’ Profit” (ბანკების მოგება,) while the same indicator in 2016
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The FINANCIAL -- The digitization of the economy is one of the most important drivers behind the profound transformation of the labor market and the way people work, which is thought likely to become even more significant in the years to come.
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