Yigit Aydede

Effects of immigration on house prices in Canada

From the turn of the present century until late 2008, house prices in some developed countries, including Canada, rose sharply compared to the increases in their per capita incomes. Some in the public circles of these countries argue that immigration fueled this rise. Each year, Canada admits about 225 000 immigrants, but information on the effect of immigration on house prices in this country is lacking. Our extensive econometric analysis based on panel data at census division levels obtained from the 1996, 2001 and 2006 population censuses indicates a statistically significant but small effect of immigration on prices of privately owned dwellings in Canada. An out migration of the native born from the areas where new immigrants settle, or an increased supply of housing due to expectations of higher demand in those areas may have caused this result.

Aggregate consumption function and public social security: the first time-series study for a developing country, Turkey

This article is the first attempt in the literature to investigate the effects of public social security on aggregate consumption in a time-series setting for a developing country, Turkey that has one of the most generous social security systems in the organization for economic cooperation and development (OECD) region. In order to quantify the social security variable, this article uses the social security wealth (SSW) series calculated for Turkey in a separate study. This study indicates that SSW is the largest part of the household wealth in Turkey, and therefore should not be ignored in the aggregate consumption studies. The results show that its effect on consumption is positive and robust.

Are the educational credentials of immigrant and native-born workers perfect substitutes in Canadian labour markets? A production function analysis

For the past two decades, most immigrants who arrived in the advanced nations of the western world originated in less advanced countries of the third world. One of the main barriers to their economic integration, as viewed in the public circles of host nations, is the lack of recognition of their educational credentials based on which the suitability of using education as a signal of labour market success of immigrants can be questioned. Canada is a major immigrant-receiving country whose reliance on immigration to meet shortages of skilled labour has increased, especially in its smaller provinces and rural areas. Using a production function approach, this study explores the degree of substitutability of educational credentials of immigrant and native-born labour. It analyses customized data, based on 2001 Canadian census, for 256 census divisions. While immigrant workers in all educational groups are imperfect substitutes for native-born, those with a university degree are the weakest substitutes. However, the value of elasticity of substitution between immigrant and native-born workers is high in all cases, indicating that immigrants are easy to absorb in Canadian labour force regardless of their educational attainment.

Generational selfishness and social security: a time‐inconsistency problem in parametric reforms of PAYG

This paper examines the increase in generational selfishness in parametric reforms of pay‐as‐you‐go (PAYG) pension systems as a potential outcome of the time‐inconsistency problem in optimal policies. When an adverse demographic shock occurs, the planner has to decide on its generational distribution in a parametric reform meant to keep the PAYG system running: benefits can be fixed for seniors or taxes can be stabilized for the young. This paper shows that if the compromising optimal policy between these two extreme examples is nonbinding, it becomes time‐inconsistent. And, parametric reforms tend to be biased in favor of contemporaneous generations, unfair in terms of generational justice, and inefficient in terms of the optimal level of consumption.

Comparison of Economic Benefits of University and Vocational High School Education among Different Majors in Turkey.

This paper aims to develop a better understanding about the labour market dynamics behind the unparalleled demand in higher education and dragging growth rates in vocational high school (VHS) education in Turkey. While estimating labour market outcomes of fields of study has been the subject of many studies in the West, such studies are lacking in Turkey. This study uses 2009–2012 Labour Force Surveys and reports wage differentials of majors for VHS and higher education separately and comparatively. This is important because the market premium (or penalty) to different majors can reflect not only differences in human capital but also shortages and surpluses in labour markets for different skills and majors. Understanding relative labour market outcomes of majors will help design policies for a better job-skill match in labour markets, which is a growing concern in Turkey.

Re-employment, Housing Tenure and Squatter Settlements in Turkey: An Empirical Analysis

Abstract Although the change in the Turkish economy in the last 14 years is historical, the primary question for public and academic circles remains unanswered: why hasn’t the growth translated into more and better jobs? This paper intends to develop a better understanding about the dragging structural unemployment by investigating the contribution of a possible labour immobility to the unemployment in Turkey. This is the first study that examines the unemployment duration and its relation to residential mobility, more specifically housing tenure in Turkey. It uses the first and only longitudinal survey, Survey of Income and Living Conditions, which became publicly available in 2011. Unlike in developed countries, homeowners in Turkey are often migrants from rural to urban areas living in semi-illegal dwellings. We use this “squatter” effect to reduce the endogeneity problem in estimations, which indicate that residential immobility has a serious impact on unemployment durations in Turkey.

Effects of immigration on interregional population flows in Canada

The purpose of this article is to investigate one possible mechanism by which the Canadian labour markets adjust to immigration. Despite the fact that Canada is one of the major immigrant receiving countries in the world, most studies that look across Canadian local markets have found immigration’s effects to be weak. The well-known argument is that rising immigration levels in an area may result in the out-migration of an area’s residents if the immigrants displace the local workers in employment, bid down wages, or cause housing prices to rise through increased demand for shelter. The present study investigates this bias by estimating the mobility responses of local residents to immigrant inflows based on a spatial equilibrium model for 28 census metropolitan areas (CMA) from 2000 to 2009. The results show that immigration has a significant displacement effect between CMAs.