M. Hakan Berument

Soccer, stock returns and fanaticism: Evidence from Turkey

Abstract This paper assesses the effect of three major soccer teams’ wins on the returns of the Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE). We argue that the effect of soccer wins on ISE returns increases with the fanaticism of the teams’ supporters.

Macroeconomic Policy and Unemployment by Economic Activity: Evidence from Turkey

This paper investigates how macroeconomic policy shocks in Turkey affect the total unemployment and provides evidence on the differential responses of the unemployment by sectors of economic activity. Our paper extends the previous work in two respects. First, we consider not only the response of total unemployment but also the response of unemployment by sectors of economic activity. Second, we consider not only the effect of monetary policy shocks, but also the effects of several other macroeconomic shocks. The quarterly data used which covers the period 1988:01 to 2004:04 from Turkey. A VAR model with a recursive order is employed to estimate the effects of shocks in real GDP, price, exchange rate, interbank interest rate, money supply and own sectoral unemployment on unemployment by sectors of economic activity. The results indicate that the positive income shock is followed by a decrease in unemployment in all economic activity groups during the initial periods except the unemployment in the Electricity sector and the Community Services sector. A positive money shock decreases unemployment in sectors of Mining, Manufacturing, Construction, Wholesale-Retail Trade, Transportation and, Finance-Insurance. Opposite results are obtained with the interbank interest rate shocks. Even if, they are not statistically significant, a positive interbank interest rate shock increases the unemployment in all economic activities at the initial levels but derives down the unemployment in the Agriculture and the Community Services sectors at the initial level. Moreover, a positive price shock increases unemployment in all economic sectors in the long run except the Mining and the Community Services. Thus, unemployment in different sectors of economic activity respond differently to various macroeconomic policy shocks.

Effects of soccer on stock markets: The return-volatility relationship ,

Abstract This paper assesses the effects of domestic soccer teams’ performances against foreign rivals on stock market returns as well as on the return–volatility relationship. Data from Chile, Spain, Turkey and the United Kingdom support propositions that soccer teams results in international cups affect stock market returns and the return–volatility relationship. Evidence from Spain and the UK, soccer powerhouses, suggests that losses are associated with lower returns and higher risk aversion but evidence from Chile and Turkey, where soccer is the most important sport but teams are not as successful, reveals that wins are associated with higher returns and lower risk aversion.

Effects of Daylight Savings Time Changes on Stock Market Volatility

The presence of daylight savings time effects on stock returns and on stock volatility was investigated using an EGARCH specification to model the conditional variance. The evidence gathered from the major United States stock markets for the period between 1967 and 2007 did not support the existence of the daylight savings time effect on stock returns or on volatility. Returns on the first business day following daylight savings time changes were not lower nor was the volatility higher, as would be expected if there were an effect.

Turkish monetary policy and components of aggregate demand: a VAR analysis with sign restrictions model

This article estimates the effects of monetary policy on components of aggregate demand using quarterly data on Turkish economy from 1987–2008 by means of structural Vector Autoregression (VAR) methodology. This study adopts Uhligs (2005) sign restrictions on the impulse responses of main macroeconomic variables to identify monetary shock. This study finds that expansionary monetary policy stimulates output through consumption and investment in the short-run. However, expansionary monetary policy is ineffective in the long-run.

Seasonality in inflation volatility: Evidence from Turkey

This paper assesses the presence of seasonal volatility in price indexes where a similar type of pattern has been reported in asset prices in financial markets. The empirical evidence from Turkey for the monthly period from 1987:01 to 2007:05 suggests the presence of seasonality in the conditional variance of inflation. Thus, inferences for the models that do not account for the seasonality in the conditional variance will be misleading.

Output–employment relationship across employment status: evidence from Turkey

This paper investigates output–employment relationships across different employment statuses and formal versus informal employment divisions for Turkey. Even if we fail to find a long-run relationship between aggregate output and total employment, there are long-run relationships between the aggregate output with all of the formal employment statuses. A further investigation for short-run relationships reveals no statistically significant relationships between aggregate output and total employment and between aggregate output and casual employment but there is a significant short-run relationship between aggregate output and total regular employment. Thus, a sustainable economic growth policy should aim to create formal and regular employment.

An interest-rate-spread-based measure of Turkish monetary policy

A coherent method to measure the effectiveness of a monetary policy improves the monetary authority’s management capacity and renders the possibility of applying sound policies prior to and during a crisis. The trend in employing complicated and ambiguity-bearing unconventional monetary tools in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis has increased the value of such a method. The aim of this article is to introduce a coherent and consistent monetary policy evaluation method for Turkey. Accordingly, we suggest that innovations in the spread between overnight interest rates and Treasury auction interest rates are informative for exchange rate, output, and prices. Empirical evidence for this identification reveals that positive innovation in spread (implying a tight monetary policy measure) decreases output temporarily, permanently decreases prices, and appreciates local currency. This result is also robust to alternative specifications.

Rethinking Interest Rate Volatility as a Macroprudential Policy Tool

Along with most other central banks, Turkeys central bank has implemented unconventional policies since the 2007/2008 financial crisis. Financial stability has been one of the targets of these macroprudential policies. However, since Turkey is working toward this goal without increasing its inflation rate, tracking only short-term interest rates to measure this policys effectiveness would be inefficient. In this paper, we provide empirical evidence from Turkey that interbank interest rate volatility can be an additional tool for monetary policy makers to help achieve the goal of financial stability. Impulse responses generated from the Vector Autoregressive models indicate that interest rate volatility increases interest rates, depreciates domestic currency and decreases credit growth and output. Its statistically insignificant effect on prices is open to interpretation.

Three-factor asset pricing model and portfolio holdings of foreign investors: evidence from an emerging market – Borsa Istanbul

This article contributes to the asset pricing literature by offering an alternative missing factor: the excess holdings of foreign investors. To incorporate this factor, we mimic the portfolio of foreign investors in Borsa Istanbul (BIST) with respect to portfolio preferences (foreign ownership) using the Fama and French’s three-factor model. Our findings suggest that market factor, size, and book-to-market (B/M) variables are still statistically significant and Jensen’s alpha is still not significant, and we obtain a statistically significant negative relationship between the excess return of foreign investors’ ownership and the return variation of a given portfolio.