Comparative analysis of economic productivity in Georgian regions 2010-2020

Abstract

Georgia has a challenging history of decentralisation. However, the main reforms have been enacted in 2014 and municipalities of Georgia has been given several major competencies and partial fiscal decentralisation has been achieved. Some other political transformations have been achieved, which indirectly have been impacting local economic development. The following analysis shows the economic productivity of Georgian regions, including Tbilisi. As the decentralisation process in Georgia is precisely related to municipalities, but statistical information is not sufficient to analyse, author and co- author empirically decided to analyse aggregated data and focus on regions, which consist of municipalities. Therefore, the sum of municipalities' economic productivity is reflected in regional terms. Economic productivity consists of multiple variables, however, according to the National Statistics Office of Georgia, all available data will be used for the comprehensive analysis of the proposed topic. Research methodology includes literature review, where researches of relevant studies of relevant countries will be examined, i.e. Baltic states and Poland. The following research is part of the Ph.D. research cycle, where the aim is to find the optimal model for developing financially self-sufficient municipalities and  regions in Georgia. Main part of the analysis in the following is to find the strongest correlation between variables, which increase productivity, therefore can stimulate investment attractiveness and have a solid impact on economic development.