სსიპ-ივანე ჯავახიშვილის სახელობის თბილისის სახელმწიფო უნივერსიტეტი
Teaching Course Syllabus
Course title
(Georgian/English)
Author(s) of the course
Lecturer(s) of the course
Code of the Course
Status of the course
(ECTS) and hours
Prerequisites
Goal of the teaching course
Learning Outcomes according
to the qualification chart
Global Challenges
გლობალური გამოწვევები
Zurab Abramishvili, Associate Professor
Davit Keshelava, Invited Lecturer
Contact Information: E-mail: d.keshelava@iset.ge , Room 6.4
Office hours: Office hours are determined in coordination with the Academic
Affairs Department, with a schedule agreed in advance with the lecturer, the
exact schedule will be available on moodle.
1. International School of Economics at TSU (ISET)
2. Level: Bachelor’s Degree
3. Elective
5 Credit - 125 hours:
Interactive work (lecture/seminar/computer lab session) – 15 hours;
Student’s individual work – 110 hours, among them:
 preparation for the midterm exam - 30 hours
 preparation for project presentation – 30 hours
 preparation for lecture – 15 hours
 Consultations – 5 hours
 Preparation for the final exam – 30 hours.
Principles of Microeconomics, Principles of Macroeconomics,
The aim of the course is for the student to consider and learn the conditions
hindering and facilitating economic development on the example of different
countries. To address the challenges of climate change in the current reality,
the course also reviews the issue of increasing migrant flows in developed
countries, the role for donor countries and their problems.
The course will highlight the international character of modern development,
and the value of international collaboration in tackling global challenges.
Knowledge and understanding:
The students can
 Understand the concepts of global challenges and why they have
impact on multi-countries
 Identify the key categories of global issues
 Learn to come up with the best actions/practices to deal with the
global challenges
 Use both academic and applied research methods to analyze global
challenge problems.
Skill:
The students can
 Formulate their own standpoint towards the global issues nations face
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 Work in groups to write an independent report and provide peer

review to other reports
 Communicate research findings and make a professional presentation
 Offer clear interpretation of research results.
 Professionally present the results of a research work

Responsibility and Autonomy:

The students can
 Critically analyze already implemented research.
 Conduct their own research project and make conclusions based on
the results.

Course Content Students will acquire basic knowledge about the major global challenges of
today’s world. Also, they will have learned what tools and methods the
economists, sociologists, and political scientists use to explore these issues from
multisectoral perspective, and what regulatory approaches are applied in
different countries to cope with them. 
Besides, students will obtain a unique experience of international collaboration
with fellow counterparts in institutions from other countries. Group work,
presentation skills, and critical thinking will also be developed during the
work on the course projects. 
See the outline below (appendix)
Teaching and learning Lectures, Cases study, group projects, individual work.
methods
Assessment and grading Students are evaluated based on a 100-point system:

Weekly activity - 30 points

The weekly activity involves lecture involvement (10 points), midterm

presentation – (20 points).

Evaluation criteria:

1. 16-20 points. The presentation is complete.

2. 9-15 points - the presentation is complete but briefly;

3. 1-8 points - The presentation is incomplete. Only a separate

fragment of the material relevant to the question is presented.

4. 0 points - The presentation does not correspond to the question or is

not given at all.

Midterm exam - 30 points

The midterm exam is a written test format and includes 5 open questions.
Each is rated with a maximum of 6 points.

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სსიპ-ივანე ჯავახიშვილის სახელობის თბილისის სახელმწიფო უნივერსიტეტი

Evaluation criteria:
1. 5-6 points - The answer is complete, delivered accurately and perfectly,
special terminology is protected, the student completely knows the
obligatory and additional literature, has no mistakes. Discussing is at a high
level.
2. 3–4 points - The answer is complete but concise, the terminology is used
correctly, there are no significant mistakes, the student completely knows the
program materials. Knows obligatory literature. The reasoning is good.
3. 1-2 points - the answer is incomplete, special terminology is insufficient,
the student knows the program material, but there are some errors. The
substantiation  is fragmentary.
4. 0 points - the answer does not match the question, or does not exist.

Final exam – 40 points

A student must have accumulated at least 11 points in order to take the final
exam.
The final exam is rated at 40 points. It consists of four 10-point open
questions.

Evaluation criteria:
1. 9-10 points - The answer is complete, delivered accurately and perfectly,
special terminology is protected, the student completely knows the
obligatory and additional literature, has no mistakes. Analyzing is as
fundamentally.
2. 7-8 points: The answer is complete, accurately delivered, special
terminology is preserved, there are no essential errors, the student is well
prepared and knows the obligatory literature of the course.
3. 5-6 points: The answer is incomplete, it is presented satisfactorily, the
special terminology is wrong, the student knows the program material.
4. 3-4 points: The answer is incomplete, the terminology is not preserved, the
relevant material of the question is presented particularly, the basic material
is not sufficiently. Substantial errors are presented.
5 .1-2 Points: The answer is incomplete, special terminology is either
incorrect or does not meet the requirements. The answer is essentially
incorrect, only separate fragments of the relevant questions of the material
are given.
6. 0 points: The answer does not match the task or does not exist.

The final exam is considered as passed if the student received at least 20

points on the exam.

               Evaluation
Letter Grade
Scores         
91-100 Excellent A
81-90 Very good B
71-80 Good C
61-70 Satisfactory D
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51-60 Sufficient E
41-50 Marginal Fail FX
0- 40 Fail F
In case of FX assessment student is allowed to take an additional exam. In
case of FX assessment in educational program component the institution of
higher education is obliged to organize final exam at least in 5 days after the
announcement of the results of final exam. Given obligation is not valid for
the dissertation, graduate project/work, creative/performance work or other
scientific project/work. The points received at final assessment is not added
to the additional exam assessment received by student. Assessment received
at additional exam is final assessment and is depicted in total assessment of.
In case of receiving 0-50 points in total assessment of educational component
considering additional exam assessment student assessment is finalized as F-
0 point. In case of F-assessment student must retake the credit.

Compulsory readings Economic Growth, by Max Roser, Our World in Data.

https://ourworldindata.org/economic-growth
Human Development Index (HDI), by Max Roser, Our World in Data, 2014
(revised in 2019).
https://ourworldindata.org/human-development-index
Brief discussion of Global Poverty, Brookings global experts:
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/
2016/07/200702_10poverty.pdf
Is globalization an engine of economic development? by Esteban Ortiz-Ospina,
Our World in Data, 2017.
https://ourworldindata.org/is-globalization-an-engine-of-economic-
development
Brief discussion of Global Imbalances, Brookings global experts:
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/
2016/07/200702_04imbalance.pdf
Geography and Development, Disease, discussion by Cowen and Tabarrok,
Marginal Revolution University, 2015 (11 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouMTbJiMVWA&t=36s
The effect of geography on institutions, discussion by Cowen and Tabarrok,
Marginal Revolution University, 2015 (18 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sLmXroN2sQ
The 2008 Financial Crisis - 5 min history lesson by The Plain Bagel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD9ry2Lgglw
The Greek Debt Crisis – 5 min history lesson by The Plain Bagel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_yiQBe8yiQ&t=336s

Callies, D.E. & D. Moellendorf (2021). Assessing climate policies: Catastrophe

avoidance and the right to sustainable development. Politics, Philosophy, &
Economics 20(2): 127-150.

IPCC (2014): Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report. Contribution of

Working Groups I, II and III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Core Writing Team, R.K.
Pachauri and L.A. Meyer (eds.)]. IPCC, Geneva, Switzerland.

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სსიპ-ივანე ჯავახიშვილის სახელობის თბილისის სახელმწიფო უნივერსიტეტი

https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/syr/

IPCC (2014): Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change.

Contribution  of  Working  Group  III  to  the  Fifth  Assessment  Report  of 
the  Intergovernmental  Panel  on  Climate  Change. Cambridge University
Press, Cam-bridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg3/ 

Stern, N. (2007): The Economics of Climate Change. The Stern Review.

Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY,
USA.

Romm, J. (2018): Climate Change: What Everyone Needs to Know. Oxford

University Press, Oxford, UK.

Andrew D. Roy. 1951. “Some Thoughts on the Distribution of Earnings,”

Oxford Economic Papers 3: 135–146.

George J. Borjas. 1987. “Self-Selection and the Earnings of Immigrants,”

American Economic Review 77: 531–553.

Francine D. Blau and Christopher Mackie, editors. 2016. The Economic and
Fiscal Consequences of Immigration, Washington, D.C.: National Academies
Press, p. 107.

George J. Borjas. 2014. Immigration Economics, Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press.

Matthias Parey, Jens Ruhose, Fabian Waldinger, and Nicolai Netz. 2017. “The
Selection of High-Skilled Emigrants,” Review of Economics and Statistics 99:
776–792.

George J. Borjas, Ilpo Kauppinen and Panu Poutvaara. 2021. “Self-Selection of

Emigrants: Theory and Evidence on Stochastic Dominance in Observable and
Unobservable Characteristics,” Economic Journal,
https://doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12585.

Christian Bartolucci, Claudia Villosio, and Mathis Wagner. 2018 “Who

Migrates and Why? Evidence from Italian Administrative Data,” Journal of
Labor Economics 36(2): 551-588.

Daniel Chiquiar and Gordon Hanson. 2005. “International Migration, Self-

Selection, and the Distribution of Wages: Evidence from Mexico and the
United States,” Journal of Political Economy 113: 239–281. 

Jesús Fernández-Huertas Moraga. 2011. “New Evidence on Emigrant

Selection,” Review of Economics and Statistics 93: 72–96.

Robert Kaestner and Ofer Malamud. 2014. “Self-Selection and International

Migration: New Evidence from Mexico,” Review of Economics and Statistics
96: 78–91.

Ray Fisman and Miriam Golden. 2017. Corruption: What Everyone Needs to
Know. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Chapters 1, 2, and 4)

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Jordan Gans-Morse, et al. 2018. “Reducing Bureaucratic Corruption:

Interdisciplinary Perspectives on What Works.” World Development 105:
171-188.

Rasma Karklins. 2002. “Typology of Post-Communist Corruption.” Problems

of Post-Communism 49(4): 22-32.

Raymond Fisman and Edward Miguel. 2007. “Corruption, Norms, and Legal
Enforcement: Evidence from Diplomatic Parking Tickets.” Journal of Political
Economy 115(6), 1020-1048.

Sören Holmberg and Bo Rothstein. 2011. “Dying of Corruption.” Health

Economics, Policy and Law 6(4), 529-547.
Additional readings Additional literatures are available on Moodle/learning management system

Additional information

Academic honesty Academic honesty is defined by the Code of Ethics and Conducts of
ISET/TSU https://iset.tsu.ge/images/Documents/Code-of-Ethics-and-
Conduct.pdf

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Appendix
Course Outline

Topic (lecture/working group/ practical work, Laboratory work and etc.) Materials (including
№ the page numbers)
1 Introductory lecture on global challenges from a non-economist
2 Introductory lecture on global challenges from an economist
3 Economic development
4
5 Climate change issues
6
7 Youth: Jobs, Demography. Papers and other
8 Midterm Exam (projects) learning materials
from the literature
9 Long-term effects of Covid-19.
section
10 Who will inherit this world?
11 Gender inequality
12
13 Migration: Increasing flows amid increasing restrictions
14 Corruption (+media, institutions)
15 Presentations (Projects)
16-18 Sessional period
Final Exam

Note: The midterm exam will be held in the week of 8th, 9th
The final exam will be held in the weeks of 16th-18th
The make-up exam will be held in the week of 19th