Alpay Filiztekin

Sources of Long-term Economic Growth for Turkey: 1880-2005

This article considers the sources of long-term economic growth for Turkey over the period 1880–2005. The period in question covers the decline and eventual dissolution of the former Ottoman Empire and the emergence of the new Turkish Republic in 1923. Hence, the article provides a unique look at the growth experience of these two different political and economic regimes. The article examines in detail the evolution of factors that led to growth in output across broad periods, including the post-World War II period and the era of globalization beginning in the 1980s. It also considers output growth in the agricultural and non-agricultural sectors separately and allows for the effects of sectoral re-allocation. The lessons from this exercise have important implications for Turkeys future economic performance, for its ability to converge to per capita income levels of developed countries, and for the viability of its current bid for European Union membership.

Does size matter in growth, productivity, employment and vulnerability/flexibility in Turkish manufacturing?

This study analyzes growth, employment and productivity in the Turkish manufacturing industry with respect to industry and size, and scrutinizes the sensitivity of firms—with respect to the economic environment—depending on firm size. Panel data techniques are used in the analyses.

The Social Dimension in Selected Candidate Countries in the Balkans: Country Report on Turkey

The European Commission awarded a contract in November 2005 to a consortium composed of the TARKI Social Research Institute (Hungary), CASE, Center for Social and Economic Research (Poland) and CEPS to analyse the socio-economic developments and the process of structural reforms in what were then four candidate countries: Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania and Turkey. The objective was to identify the major challenges in the current demographic, social and economic context that could be considered relevant in determining the capacity of these countries to function in the European Union. This study presents the findings for Turkey and consists of an analytical section and a statistical annex. The other country reports and synthesis report are published separately in this same series

The Law of One Price and the Role of Market Structure

This paper examines the role of market structure on the persistence of price deviations from the LOP using monthly actual product prices of 47 items collected from three different types of markets in Istanbul over 1993:01-2008:12. After showing the importance of market structure on the distribution of relative prices, we implement threshold autoregressive models. We find significant differences in average threshold estimates across markets which we explain referring to differing menu costs in each market. Yet, we find no differences in average half-life estimates across markets. We argue that this is due to low search costs in Istanbul. Robustness checks verify our findings.