James d. Gwartney

Aram Ghazaryan received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Turin. He is a
lecturer of Economics at Yerevan State University and the American University of Armenia.
He is a founder of the Center for Behavioral Decisions, a research and consultancy unit.
Aida Gjika received her Ph.D. in Economics from Staffordshire University in the United
Kingdom and is a lecturer at the Faculty of Economy of the University of Tirana. She has over
10 years’ experience in teaching undergraduate and postgraduate courses (Microeconomics
and Academic Writing) and project work and consultancy at various international projects,
mostly engaged as an applied economist with expertise in data analysis. Her research focuses
on questions of fiscal decentralization and economic growth, but she also explores fiscal
policy, tobacco taxation, and regional growth. Aida is a CERGE-EI Foundation Teaching
Fellow.
Maya Grigolia received her M.A. in Economics from the International School of Economics
at Tbilisi State University (ISET), Georgia. She is a Ph.D. candidate at Tbilisi State University.
Currently, she is the instructor at the American University of the Middle-East, Kuwait. She has
more than 10 years’ experience in teaching, research, project writing, and consultancy. Her
research interests are Fiscal Policy, Financial Education, and Private Sector Development. Her
teaching portfolio includes Macroeconomics, Economic Policy, Principles of Economics,
Statistics, and Data Analysis. Her past experience contains project writing and consultancy
with different international organizations such are the World Bank (WB), the Asian
Development Bank (ADB), the European Commission, and USAID.
Anahit Hovhannisyan holds an M.A. in Economics from the International School of
Economics at Tbilisi State University (ISET), Georgia. She is an economist at the Monetary
Policy Department of the Central Bank of Armenia.
Drini Imami received his Ph.D. in Agri-Food Economics and Policy from the University of
Bologna. He has conducted research for several leading European research institutions and has
contributed to more than 50 scientific journal articles. His research interests include behavioral,

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political, and institutional economics. Drini has worked as a consultant for organizations
including the FAO, the World Bank, EBRD, GIZ, and JICA. He is an Associate Professor in
the Faculty of Economics and Agribusiness at the Agricultural University of Tirana.
Leslie McCall, CFA, received her MBA from the university of Virginia’s Colgate Darden
School of Business Administration and her BA from Wellesley College. She has over 25 years’
experience on Wall Street, having held senior positions in equity research, portfolio
management, and investment banking. Her economic research into consumer income and
behavior, and the predictability of their effects on equity trading, helped establish her as an
expert in consumer stocks. She is currently a consultant in equity research.