Recently, one of the authors of this article was crossing a street with a crowd of people at green pedestrian light close to Marjanishvili metro station, when a Mercedes was accelerating and heading towards the people, ignoring the red light, making the crowd splash in all directions. A police car was standing nearby, doing nothing. Walking and driving in Tbilisi is usually dangerous and stressful. When walking aroun
While written in 1991, “The Development Frontier” by Peter Bauer has lost none of its relevance for Georgia and other predominantly agrarian economies of the 21st century. Economic development, suggests Bauer, “begins with the replacement of subsistence activities by production for sale. Producers will move out of subsistence production only if they see the advantages of doing so and if it is made possible for them t
Everyone using the service of the Tbilisi marshrutkas experiences one of two extreme cases: the marshutka either moves tantalizingly slowly or excessively fast. How can this apparent paradox be explained? In search for an answer, let us turn to game theory, one of the appealing outgrows of mathematical economics. GAME THEORY IN ACTION A game is a situation in which different parties, usually called players, independe
Tbilisi public transportation resembles a classic Greek tragedy. In those pieces, usually the gods interfere with human affairs and create a big mess. In Tbilisi, marshrutkas were operating in a competitive market and state intervention led to the creation of a monopoly. In Greek tragedies, once the fateful events have started, the tension increases more and more until the story reaches its climax – the showdown betw
On Monday evening I am taking the express train from Tbilisi to Samtredia with my wife and two kids (business class, 120GEL). We plan to stay overnight in a little family hotel (40GEL), and at 6.30am we’ll board the Wizz Air flight to Katowice, Poland, at the cost €40 a person and €35 per suitcase (one way). Seat reservations, luggage, train and guesthouse included, the roundtrip to Poland will cost my family around
The Quality of Living Survey 2012 of the international consultancy group Mercer ranks 222 cities in the world according to how livable they are. Tbilisi was ranked on Place 213, provoking furious reactions by many Georgians. On the internet, it is easy to find wild slanders against those who created the ranking and even against those who just referred to it, and there was even an online petition initiated against the