Başak Dalgıç

Wage Inequality and Wage Mobility in Turkey

This paper investigates wage inequality and wage mobility in Turkey using the Surveys on Income and Living Conditions (SILC). This is the first paper that explores wage mobility for Turkey. It differs from the existing literature by providing analyses of wage inequality and wage mobility over various socioeconomic groups such as gender, age, education and sector of economic activity. We first present an overview of the evolution of wages and wage inequality over the period 2005-2011. Next, we compute several measures of wage mobility and explore the link between wage inequality and wage mobility. Further, we compute the transition matrices which show movements of individuals across the wage distribution from one period to another and investigate the determinants of transition probabilities using a multinomial logit model. The results show that overall the real wages increased over the study period and wage inequality exhibits a slight increase.. Wage inequality is one of the highest among the European Union (EU) countries. The wage mobility in Turkey is lower than what is observed in the European Union countries although it increases as time horizon expands. Wage mobility has an equalizing impact on the wage distribution, however; this impact is not substantial enough to overcome the high and persistent wage inequality in Turkey.

The effect of innovation on productivity: evidence from Turkish manufacturing firms

Abstract This paper systematically explores the effects of firms’ innovation activities on their productivity changes for Turkish manufacturing firms, differentiating between different typologies of innovation. We employ endogenous switching methodology, controlling for endogeneity and selection bias issues, as well as analysing counterfactual scenarios. The main finding of the study points to firm heterogeneity in terms of propensity both to innovate and to benefit from innovation activities. Our results indicate that all types of innovation activity have positive effects on the productivity of firms when compared with non-innovating firms. We find robust evidence for the differential impact of innovation on firm productivity across different innovation types. Further, this relationship alters across different phases of the economy with respect to the 2008 financial crisis.

Does Foreign Direct Investment Bring Jobs to Women? A Closer Look to Turkish Services Industry

The aim of this study is to investigate of the relationship between foreign direct investment and women employment. Focusing on services sector with the highest rate of women employment, we empirically attest whether foreign direct investment creates job Çalışmanın gerçekleştirilebilmesi için firma düzeyinde veriye ulaşmamızı sağlayan Türkiye İstatistik Kurumu (TÜİK) ve personeli Doğan Böncü, Şenol Bozdağ, Nusret Kılıç, Nilgün Arıkan, Erdal Yıldırım, Kenan Orhan, Bülent Tungul, Akın Bodur, Sabit Cengiz Ceylan, Ferhat Irmak ve Esra Sazak’a teşekkür ederiz. Sorumlu yazar. TOBB Ekonomi ve Teknoloji Üniversitesi, Uluslararası Girişimcilik Bölümü, 06550 Ankara, Türkiye. bfazlioglu@etu.edu.tr

Is There a Non-Linear Relationship between Trade and Growth? A Panel Threshold Analysis for Central and Eastern European Countries

It is suggested that international trade has a positive effect on the growth rate of economies. Although a vast literature has illustrated that open or more liberalised economies grow faster, the specific factors that promote this process have only recently begun to be investigated. We belive that there is a non-linear relationship between trade and growth, with the impact depending on a number of macroeconomic factors, i.e. the magnitude and even the direction of the effect of trade on economic performance might depend on other macroeconomic variables. Within this framework, our study aims to investigate the possible non-linearity in the trade-growth relationship, with a special focus on the financial deepening level for the selected Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. Unlike the existing empirical literature on trade-growth nexus for the CEE economies, we utilise threshold regression techniques, where we allow the size and direction of the impact of trade on growth to differ between regimes, conditioning on the financial deepening level of these countries. Regarding credit growth and investment/credit ratio as thresholds, the countries in the upper regime benefit significantly more from trade.

TÜRKİYE’DE ORTA GELİRDEN DÜŞÜK GELİR VE YÜKSEK GELİRE GEÇİŞİN

Calismanin amaci Turkiye’deki orta gelirli sinifin genel durumunu belirlemek ve orta gelirden dusuk gelire ve yuksek gelire gecis olasiligini etkileyen sosyoekonomik ve demografik faktorleri tespit etmektir. Analizlerde 2005-2013 yillari arasindaki TUIK tarafindan duzenlenen gelir ve yasam kosullari anketleri kullanilarak probit modeli ile tahminler yapilmistir. Analiz sonuclari orta gelirden dusuk ve yuksek gelire geciste yas, cinsiyet, egitim, SGK’ya kayitlilik, hane sayisi, hanedeki cocuk sayisi, hanede elde edilen gelir tipi ve calisilan sektorlerin etkili oldugunu gostermektedir.

DOĞRUDAN YABANCI YATIRIMLAR VE İSTİHDAM: TÜRKİYE ÖRNEĞİ

Calismada dogrudan yabanci yatirimlarin istihdam uzerimdeki etkilerini 2003-12 zaman araliginda firma duzeyinde bir veri setini kullanarak incelemekteyiz. Analizlerde orneklem secim problemini onleyecek sekilde, dogrudan yabanci yatirim alma durumunu iceren uygulama (treatment) modelleri olusturmakta ve bu modellere Egilim Skoru Eslestirmesi (Propensity Score Matching) teknigi ile birlikte Fark-icinde-Fark (Difference-in-Difference) teknigini uygulamaktayiz. dogrudan yabanci yatirmlarin firma istihdami uzerindeki surdurulebilir etkililerini gorebilmek uzere uygulama sonrasi zaman periyodunu uzatmakta farkli uygulama gruplari olusturmaktayiz. Calismanin sonuclari firmalarin istihdam duzeyinin dogrudan yabanci yatirim almanin hemen ardindan artirdigini ve bu etkinin takip eden yillarda da surdugunu gostermektedir.

Entry to foreign markets and productivity: Evidence from a matched sample of Turkish manufacturing firms

We examine the effects of international trading activities of firms on creating productivity gains in Turkey by using a recent firm-level data set over the period 2003–2010. We establish treatment models and investigate the productivity improvements of firms through trade by using propensity score matching techniques together with difference-in-difference estimates. Three different groups of treatment are constructed: (1) firms that are involved only with import activities, (2) firms that are involved only with export activities and (3) firms that are involved with both export and import activities. The results of the study suggest that both exporting and importing have positive significant effects on total factor productivity (TFP) and labour productivity (LP) of firms. Importing is found to have a greater impact on productivity of firms compared to exporting. Further, two-way trade is found to have more significant effects than those of one-way trade on firm productivity. Finally, our results indicate that international trade has greater impact on LP rather than TFP of firms.

Wages, Profitability and Market Structure: Threshold Regression Analyses

This paper employs threshold regression techniques to examine the effect of product market structure on real wages and profitability. Using longitudinal data on Turkish manufacturing industries over the period of 1985-2001, we show that market concentration has positive effects on wages and profitability. The positive effect of market concentration on wages is only significant over a certain threshold level whereas, the positive effect of market concentration on profitability exists in both regimes determined by a lower threshold level of concentration but weakens over this threshold. Our results suggest that the imperfectly competitive structure of Turkish manufacturing industry offers more monopoly rent to employers than employees.