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on Arab World |
| By: | Gonenc, Rauf; Rawdanowicz, Lukasz |
| Abstract: | In the 2000s, Turkey has enjoyed rapid catching–up. This was possible despite the adverse business environment, as the semi–formal and informal economy had a significant contribution to the expansion of the private sector. Productivity growth was strong, but labour utilisation remained very low. Looking forward, higher employment and productivity growth will not be possible without profound regulatory reforms of minimum wages, severance payments, social security contributions and flexible job contracts. These reforms have been discussed for a long time, but political obstacles prevented implementing them. Resolving this deadlock calls for advancing an integrated strategy of labour reforms and formalisation via experimenting with new regulation on the voluntary basis to identify the most successful solutions that can be later rolled out to the whole economy. Moreover, Turkey has to ease further anti–competitive product market regulations by reducing barriers to entrepreneurship and foreign direct investment, and by limiting government involvement in business. A successful implementation of these reforms would allow Turkey to enjoy golden decades. |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:reg:wpaper:650&r=ara |
| By: | Sulku, Seher Nur |
| Abstract: | Turkey has implemented major health care reforms to improve the efficiency of the health care system since 2003. The objective of this study is to investigate the impact of these reforms, especially the performance-based payment system (P4P), on the efficiency of public hospitals. We employ the Data Envelopment Approach and the Malmquist index to comparatively examine before and after the reform years, 2001 and 2006 respectively. Our analyses compare the performances of public hospitals served in provincial markets. Inputs of number of beds, number of primary care physician, and number of specialists, and how they are used to produce outputs of inpatient discharges, outpatient visits, surgical operations are investigated. Indeed, as the quality indicators dead rate, hospital bed occupation rate and average length of stay are considered. We found that the P4P was successful in boosting productivity due to advancements in technology and technical efficiency. It is seen that the average technical efficiency gains took place because of the significantly improved scale efficiencies, but the average pure technical efficiency did not improve. The lower pure technical efficiencies compared to scale efficiencies affirms the lack adaptation of the hospital management to the renewed system. Additionally, our analysis indicates that in the socio-economically disadvantaged provinces productivity gains have not been achieved. Lastly, it is seen that the hospital quality indicators have not improved in the short run. In the international literature, P4P has been examined extensively for the developed countries. However there are a limited number of studies on developing countries. As it has been noted in the OECD health system review of Turkey: “Turkey is closing the performance gap with other OECD countries and, on a number of measures including overall costs, performs well relative to other comparable upper middle-income countries. Indeed, there may be much that other countries can learn from the recent health reforms in Turkey, especially in the use of performance-related pay to raise staff productivity”. Thus, our study would contribute to the existing literature with a comprehensive analysis of the health system efficiency in Turkey. |
| Keywords: | Turkey; Healthcare reform; Performance based supplementary payment system; Hospital efficiency |
| JEL: | I11 I12 I18 C33 |
| Date: | 2011–03–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:29598&r=ara |
| By: | Ben Ali, Samir |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we study some empirical issues in the estimation of a New-Keynesian Phillips curve for Tunisia. In this purpose, we compare the performance of the strict and hybrid forms in the validation of data. In addition, we try to establish the sensitivity of the Phillips curve estimation to some empirical speci cations. It includes the measures to be used for the output gap variable, as well as the implementation of the generalized method of moments for the estimation of this curve. |
| Keywords: | monetary policy; New Keynesian Phillips curve; Inflation; sensitivity;Tunisia |
| JEL: | E31 E52 C22 |
| Date: | 2010–11–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:29624&r=ara |
| By: | Marotta, Daniela; Yemtsov, Ruslan; El-Laithy, Heba; Abou-Ali, Hala; Al-Shawarby, Sherine |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a detailed picture of how sustained growth in Egypt over 2005-2008 affected different groups both above and below the poverty line. This analysis, based on the Household Income, Expenditure and Consumption Panel Survey conducted by Egypt’s national statistical agency, compares the changes in the static poverty profiles (based on growth incidence curves on a cross-section of data) with poverty dynamics (relying on panel data, growth incidence curves and transition matrices). The two approaches yield contrasting results: the longitudinal analysis reveals that growth benefited the poor while the cross-sectional analysis shows that the rich benefitted even more. The paper also shows the importance of going beyond averages to look at the trajectories of individual households. Panel data analysis shows that the welfare of the average poor household increased by almost 10 percent per year between 2005 and 2008, enough to move out of poverty. Conversely however, many initially non-poor households were exposed to poverty. As a matter of fact, only 45 percent of the population in Egypt remained consistently out of (near-) poverty throughout the period, while the remaining 55 percent of Egyptians experienced at least one (near-) poverty episode. This high mobility is not a statistical artefact: it reflects the actual process of growth. Taking high vulnerability into account is essential when designing policies to protect the poor and to ensure that growth is really inclusive. |
| Keywords: | Rural Poverty Reduction,Achieving Shared Growth,Regional Economic Development,Inequality |
| Date: | 2011–03–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5589&r=ara |