CRAIG MACPHEE , pictured at left with a Russian-language textbook, is helping create a new economy in Georgia. Below, he displays a souvenir t-shirt from Moscow's Hard Rock Café.

MacPhee Helping Establish Economy in Former Soviet Republic

He's Got Georgia on His Mind

By Tom Simons, Public Relations

It had all the makings of a dream assignment for Craig MacPhee.

The Paul C. Burmeister college professor of economics stepped down last summer as chair of the economics department after 12 non-consecutive years in the post and planned to take a year of academic leave. He would spend the fall semester working for the U.S. Agency for International Development in the Republic of Georgia, which gained its independence from the former Soviet Union in 1990. He also planned to spend the spring semester in Paris with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Instead of springtime in the "City of Light," however, he's back in the semi-darkness of the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, which lacks 24-hour electricity.

"I got so involved in the work there and I decided it's so important that I would give up on the OECD work in Paris," MacPhee said during a brief return visit to Lincoln in early January.

Georgia, a country about the size of West Virginia with a population of 5.2 million, is important to the United States, MacPhee said, because of its strategic location connecting the landlocked Caspian Sea oil center of Baku, Azerbaijan, with the Black Sea and shipping lanes to Western Europe and America. With Iran and Iraq to the south, he explained, "The U.S. is looking at it as the only safe route for Caspian oil from Central Asia."

To ensure the safety of a potential pipeline, though, it's imperative that the republic establish an infrastructure of solid economic, financial, legal and governmental institutions-all of which are absent in the aftermath of nearly 70 years of Soviet rule, plus turmoil and civil war in the early years following regained independence.

A small army of western advisers in the country is helping Georgians make the transition to democracy and a market economy. MacPhee's assignment has been to keep track of what advisers from different agencies are doing. He said he brings the advisers together to give them an overall picture of how the economy is performing and advises them on what strategies the international community there should follow in terms of helping the country. He said he's also trying to help the process by establishing meaningful economic indicators.

"I've been trying to find some more accurate measures of what's going on because the government produces a lot of statistics that I think are just made up," MacPhee said. The practice, he said, is ingrained from Soviet days when "everybody lied" in order to claim they had met economic goals.

"We try to find indicators like electricity consumption or agricultural production to get more accurate measures. Agriculture is by far the biggest sector even though Georgia is mainly mountains."

MacPhee said the long-term prospects for the country are good because of its strategic location and an educated younger generation that understands what needs to be done. Blessed with a subtropical climate, the towering Caucasus Mountains and a rich cultural heritage, Georgia also has great potential for tourism.

But, he said, it's going to take a while to overcome the fears and suspicions of the Soviet era to establish the confidence in public institutions that is taken for granted in the West.

For example, after nearly seven years of independence, Georgia is only part-way through privatizing land ownership, and without land as collateral farmers can't get loans to improve their operations. Bankruptcy laws have been passed, but judges inherited from the Soviet court system won't enforce them, so banks are reluctant to lend to businesses. Suspicion of government is so long-standing and deep-seated that MacPhee estimates the black market accounts for two-thirds of the economy.

"That's why it's such an interesting experience for an economist to go over there," he said. "Working in a market economy with all of the economic models we have, we don't stop to think about the underlying institutions that influence everybody's behavior, that make our normal business activities go on-and allow it to go on. It's really been a great lesson."

Elizabeth Petrakis and Bill Murphy get a closer look at some of the archived materials once used by the women's physical education department. These items will be displayed Jan. 30 in Mabel Lee Hall.

One of Nation's Pioneering Programs

Centennial of Women's P.E. Celebrated

One of the nation's oldest women's physical education programs will celebrate its 100th anniversary at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Jan. 30.

"As best as we can determine, the university was one of the very first to offer a professional preparation program for women in physical education," said Bill Murphy, professor and chair of the department of health and human performance, which encompasses women's physical education in Teachers College.

"For some time, we thought Nebraska had the first program, but we now know that Oberlin and probably Stanford predated us," he said. "It's definitely the oldest in this part of the country, though. The Nebraska program tracks to 1898, but that doesn't mean there weren't physical activities for women before that."

The department will host an informal reception for alumni in the morning, then will have public displays and demonstrations from 2 to 4 p.m. in Mabel Lee Hall, 14th and Vine streets.

Murphy said the demonstrations will include the latest technology that is used in teaching health and human performance, formerly known as physical education.

There also will be a display dedicated to equipment and clothing used a century and more ago.