Rauf Gönenç

Regulation, Market Structure and Performance in Air Passenger Transportation

The paper uses a data base on regulation, market structure and performance in the air passenger transportation industry, to analyse the links among liberalisation, private ownership, competition, efficiency and airfares at national and route levels. Covering the 1996-97 travel season, 21 aggregate indicators have been developed for 27 OECD countries, and 23 micro indicators for 102 air routes connecting 14 major international airports. These data, summarised by means of factor analysis show that i) regulations affecting the air industry vary heavily across countries and routes; ii) in most markets, air services are still provided by a few carriers, generally dominated by an incumbent flag-carrier or by an airline alliance between incumbents; iii) only in a few cases new entrant airlines play a significant role; iv) in a large number of airports, a single airline controls more than half of the available slots; v) as a result, few international routes are truly open to ... Cette etude utilise une base de donnees concernant la regulation, la structure des marches et la performance dans le transport aerien de passagers, au niveau national ainsi qu’au niveau des lignes, pour analyser les liens entre d’une part la liberalisation, la privatisation et la concurrence et, d’autre part, l’efficacite de l’industrie et les tarifs des voyages aeriens. Pour la saison 1996-97, il a ete possible de developper 21 indicateurs agreges pour 27 pays de l’OCDE et 23 indicateurs detailles pour 102 lignes aeriennes reliant 14 grands aeroports internationaux. Ces donnees, synthetisees a l’aide de l’analyse factorielle, montrent que i) la regulation de l’industrie du transport aerien varie remarquablement selon les pays et les lignes ; ii) dans la majorite des marches, les services de transport aerien sont encore fournis par un nombre restreint de vecteurs, qui sont generalement domines par une compagnie nationale presente depuis longtemps sur le marche ou par une alliance ...

Economic Effects of the 1999 Turkish Earthquakes

This Working Paper presents a cross-Directorate Report on the economic, budgetary, regulatory and urbanpolicy implications of the earthquakes which struck the Marmara and Bolu areas of Turkey on 17 August and 12 November 1999. The earthquakes caused high casualties and significant material damage to property, with severe effects on economic activity. The Report traces the factors underlying Turkey’s vulnerability to earthquake damage, along a known active fault line, to deficiencies in risk identification procedures and risk-reduction methods, as well as to the absence of risk transfer and financing techniques. It suggests that these deficiencies may stem from the nature of recent Turkish economic development, which has been driven by the need to assimilate a mass migration from the countryside to the cities and has been associated with extremely high and variable inflation. Ensuring a more orderly future development requires both an overhaul of governance structures in ...

Reforming Turkey's Public Expenditure Management

Fiscal imbalances were a main cause for chronic high inflation and macroeconomic instability before the 2000/2001 crisis. Fiscal consolidation is the cornerstone of post-crisis stabilization. It has been quite successful over the past three years as sizeable primary surpluses have been sustained and the fall in interest rates has reduced the interest cost of public debt. Fiscal targets have been achieved chiefly by raising revenues which has increased the tax burden; greater emphasis should now be placed on the control of public expenditure. At the same time, core public services such as education, justice, infrastructure and rural development will need to be upgraded. Social security costs may also rise with the planned shift to universal health insurance, and the ambitious administrative decentralization project could cause upward pressure on local spending. Far-reaching rationalization of public expenditures is therefore required to meet the quantitative fiscal targets while ... Reformer la gestion des depenses budgetaires en Turquie Les desequilibres fiscaux ont ete une cause majeure de l’inflation forte et de l’instabilite macroeconomique avant la crise de 2000/2001. La consolidation budgetaire a ete au cœur de la stabilisation apres la crise. Elle a ete mise en œuvre depuis trois ans avec des excedents primaires larges, et la baisse des taux d’interet a reduit le cout du service de la dette publique. Les objectifs budgetaires ont ete atteints principalement par une hausse des revenus, augmentant la pression fiscale, et plus d’attention devra etre accordee a l’avenir au controle des depenses. En meme temps des services publics majeurs comme l’education, la justice, les infrastructures et le developpement rural devront etre ameliores. Les depenses de securite sociale pourraient aussi augmenter avec le passage annonce a la couverture medicale universelle, et l’ambitieux projet de decentralisation administrative pourrait accroitre les depenses locales. Une forte rationalisation des depenses devient donc ...

Rationalising Public Expenditure in the Slovak Republic

Over the past decade, public expenditure in Slovakia was characterised by substantial social transfers and high public sector wage expenses. This paper analyses the main features of Slovakia’s public expenditure system, reviews expenditure trends, and discusses recent reform initiatives. The latter have concerned the introduction of medium-term budget projections, the switch towards performance-based budgeting, the limitation of extra-budgetary funds, the devolution of spending power to sub-central administrative units, changes to the public employment regime, and reforms of the social security system. These initiatives are critically assessed and a number of recommendations concerning implementation and further reform steps are developed ... Rationaliser les depenses publiques en Republique Slovaque Durant la derniere decennie, les depenses publiques en Slovaquie ont ete caracterisees par des transferts sociaux considerables et des substantielles depenses salariales dans le secteur public. Ce document examine les specificites du systeme de depenses publiques, passe en revue l’evolution des depenses et discute les initiatives de reforme recentes. Ces dernieres ont concerne la gestion des finances publiques dans un cadre de depenses a moyen terme, le changement vers un systeme base sur les objectifs budgetaires, la limitation des fonds extra-budgetaires, la devolution des responsabilites budgetaires vers les administrations locales et regionales, les changements dans le systeme d’emploi public, et des reformes dans le systeme de securite sociale. Ces initiatives sont evaluees de facon critique et un nombre de recommandations sont developpees concernant la mise en œuvre des changements et des etapes de reforme supplementaires ...