Author Archives: Aleksandr Gevorkyan

About Aleksandr Gevorkyan

Dr. Gevorkyan is the author of Innovative Fiscal Policy and Economic Development in Transition Economies (Routledge, 2013 & 2011) and the editor and translator of How Did I Survive? (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008).

A migration development bank that works

There are two critical factors to the contemporary phase of global labor migration: diaspora and remittances (small foreign currency transfers from host to home economies). Both can be the forces contributing to and fostering macroeconomic development in (usually) structurally weaker home (sender) economies.The way to do it?

In a recent essay entitled “Toward a Migration Development Bank for Transition Economies” Otaviano Canuto and I try to rationalize some optimal solutions. Continue reading →

The legends of the Caucasus…

In a recent paper, in the International Business Review, entitled “The Legends of the Caucasus: Economic Transformation of Armenia and Georgia”  I attempt to evaluate the past two decades of macroeconomic, business, and institutional transformation in the two small open economies.

All standard clarifications on the imperfections of the post-socialist transition aside, I argue, that the two are open to international business that follows the local context.

Continue reading →

Emerging markets uncertainty

Last week Gavyn Davies reported in FT.com a summary of his debate on emerging markets with three prominent economists: Maurice Obstfeld (USC-Berkeley), Alan M. Taylor (UC-Davis), and Dominic Wilson (Co-Head of Global Economics, Goldman Sachs) – the “panel”. In summary (read full transcript here), the panel finds much vulnerability in the emerging markets (EMs). What’s more, any significant upset in the EMs might  backfire into developed markets (DMs) instabilities via external sector and commodity prices imbalances. Continue reading →

Sorting through “emerging” financial markets

Wrapping up this year’s Eastern Economic Association Conference, where I organized and chaired a session entitled ‘The perils of financial deepening and post-crisis development in emerging markets‘.

The panel addressed current opportunities and risks to [what we’ve become accustomed to refer to as] emerging economies given their increased involvement in the international capital markets & commodity trade, sovereign borrowing, and exchange rate stabilization strategies in the light of economic uncertainty exacerbated by sporadic capital flows, migration, trade imbalance, and a host of other factors, climate change included. Continue reading →

Daron Acemoglu at Armenian Economic Association 2013 meeting;

Hi, follow this link for keynote address by Prof. Daron Acemoglu of MIT at the Armenian Economic Association’s meeting in October 2013.  AEA 2013, keynote: Daron Acemoglu, MIT

I followed up with a question on South Korea’s experience and transformation in Eastern Europe. Why such a question? The theme comes up routinely in almost any informed discussion centered around economic development. Check it here.

Overall, there were some really interesting points in the keynote presentation and in the Q&A and during the entire conference.