Transcript Georgia - International School of Economics at Tbilisi State University

Georgia –
On the Move
Caucasus Research Resource Centers
&
International School of Economics at TSU
Robert Tchaidze, ISET & IMF
Tina Zurabishvili, CRRC & Telavi State University
1
April 22, 2008
Why Georgia?





Socially minded reforms top new government agenda;
Rose Revolution & Russian embargo changing
migration trends with important impacts and
implications for development;
Economic and business climate reforms and high
growth create prospects for return migration and
immigration;
IDPs and ethnic minority communities create different
patterns within the same country;
Only descriptive research with limited policy
implications for migration and development carried out.
2
April 22, 2008
Migration
Dynamics in Georgia




Post-soviet reorganization of industrial
geography and the resulting movement of labor;
The effect of conflicts in the region on movement
of people;
The “westward” reorientation of emigration is
believed to be changing gender and human
capital composition of migrants;
Radical current reformation of the economic,
legal and political life and the resulting change in
migration flows.
3
April 22, 2008
Policies
Pull Factors
 European Neighborhood Policy: return and readmission
agreements.
Push Factors
 Re-conceptualization of social welfare net, active labor
market policies;
 Development of a regional policy: minimizing push factors in
vulnerable communities.
Other factors
 Banking and taxation policies to increase legal flow of
remittances;
 Tax breaks for return migrants.
4
April 22, 2008
Impact

Economic:


GDP structure; remittances; brain drain/gain; real
estate; rural-urban composition; anything else?
Social:

Ethnic map being re-drawn;
Gender roles being re-formulated;
Family structures being re-organized;
Georgian way of life being re-defined;

Anything else?



5
April 22, 2008
Analyzing Migration
Impacts, Causality

Hard to make causality claims.

Additional difficulty posed by self-selection
into migration (endogeneity problem).

Econometric “toolbox” for dealing with
causality issues.
6
April 22, 2008
Why us?
Interdisciplinary team of sociologists,
economists and public policy analysts;
 Integrated in international network of
scholars;
 Dedicated to high quality and new
techniques;
 Experience in fieldwork;
 Sponsor and implement migration
research in the region;
 Will do our own and support more
research on topics not covered by
GDN/ippr.

7
April 22, 2008
Timetable





8
Stakeholder interviews – May 2008
onwards
Household survey – Fall 2008
Very preliminary results and the DOTM
conference – January 2009
Empirical evaluations, policy
recommendations – 2009
The DOTM conference, conclusions,
datasets go public – January 2010
April 22, 2008
Stakeholder
Interviews
In-depth interviews with experts
in the field of migration.
 The experts will represent government
institutions, international organizations,
private financial institutions, NGOs.
 Interviews to be conducted starting from
May, 2008.

9
April 22, 2008
Major issues:
Migration flows;
 Brain drain/gain;
 Remittances;
 Emigrants’ investments;
 Migration policy;
 Other issues you are interested in.

10
April 22, 2008
Household
survey
Based on experts’ assessments, regions of the
country will be selected; in each of these
regions, a sample of households will be drawn
which gives us a representative sample of
households with:
 Returned migrants;
 Migrants who are still abroad;
 Households with no migrants;
To be conducted in September-October, 2008.
11
April 22, 2008
Major goals:
Collecting countrywide data on the
experiences of the households
affected by migration and compare to
other households without migrants.
 What other questions do you want to
ask?

12
April 22, 2008
More data
sources:

World Bank Remittances and Migration
Survey;
Georgia Integrated Household Survey
(IHS);
CRRC Data Initiative 2007;
National Bank of Georgia, official remittance
data;
OSCE Use of Remittances Survey;
ILO Migration Survey.
Other sources that you know of?
13
April 22, 2008






Questions?
 Suggestions?
 Comments?
 Recommendations?

14
April 22, 2008