|
on Arab World |
| By: | Mehmet Kerim Gokay (Bahcesehir University); Zumrut Imamoglu (Bahcesehir University Center for Economic and Social Research (Betam)); Baris Soybilgen (Bahcesehir University Center for Economic and Social Research (Betam)) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes whether Turkish firms experienced a credit crunch at the outset of the global crisis. Our hypothesis is that if a credit crunch was experienced in Turkey, firms that are more dependent on external finance for investment and working capital must have been affected more severely. Hence, we should observe a higher drop in their stock returns during the crisis. Using firm-level data, we find that returns of firms with high dependence on external finance for working capital and balance sheet problems before the crisis decline more during the crisis. We also run the same regressions for pre-crisis drops in the stock market as a placebo test. We find that stock returns were not affected by dependence on external finance for investment and working capital in the non-crisis period. Our results suggest that Turkish firms might have experienced a credit crunch at the outset of the crisis even though Turkish banking sector was intact. On the other hand, we find no evidence for a demand effect: Being an exporter does not matter for the decrease in stock returns. |
| Keywords: | Financial Crisis; Credit Crunch; Turkey |
| JEL: | G10 G30 |
| Date: | 2012–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bae:wpaper:006&r=ara |
| By: | Aysit Tansel (Middle East Technical University); Nil Demet Güngör (Atilim University) |
| Abstract: | Several recent empirical studies have examined the gender effects of education on economic growth or on steady-state level of output using the much exploited, familiar cross-country data in order to determine their quantitative importance and the direction of correlation. This paper undertakes a similar study of the gender effects of education using province level data for Turkey. The main findings indicate that female education positively and significantly affects the steady-state level of labor productivity, while the effect of male education is in general either positive or insignificant. Separate examination of the effect of educational gender gap was negative on output. The results are found to be robust to a number of sensitivity analyses, such as elimination of outlier observations, controls for simultaneity and measurement errors, controls for omitted variables by including regional dummy variables, steady-state versus growth equations and considering different samples. |
| Keywords: | Labor Productivity, Economic Development, Education, Gender, Turkey |
| JEL: | O11 O15 I21 J16 |
| Date: | 2012–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:koc:wpaper:1209&r=ara |
| By: | Tansel, Aysit; Gungor, Nil D. |
| Abstract: | Several recent empirical studies have examined the gender effects of education on economic growth or on steady-state level of output using the much exploited, familiar cross-country data in order to determine their quantitative importance and the direction of correlation. This paper undertakes a similar study of the gender effects of education using province level data for Turkey. The main findings indicate that female education positively and significantly affects the steady-state level of labor productivity, while the effect of male education is in general either positive or insignificant. Separate examination of the effect of educational gender gap was negative on output. The results are found to be robust to a number of sensitivity analyses, such as elimination of outlier observations, controls for simultaneity and measurement errors, controls for omitted variables by including regional dummy variables, steady-state versus growth equations and considering different samples. |
| Keywords: | Labor Productivity; Economic Development; Education; Gender; Turkey |
| JEL: | O11 I21 J16 |
| Date: | 2012–04–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:38391&r=ara |
| By: | Ilkkaracan, Ipek (Istanbul Technical University, Faculty of Management); Levent, Haluk (Galatasaray University Economic Research Center); Polat, Sezgin (Galatasaray University Economic Research Center) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we use Turkish household labor force data to address a number of conceptual issues pertaining to the wage curve, an empirically derived negative relationship between the real wage level and the local unemployment rate. First, we estimate the wage curve using various definitions of the unemployment rate including discouraged and marginally attached workers, or the long-term unemployment rate to explore the most relevant measure of local labor market tension in the wage setting process. We find that broader definitions of unemployment provide a more effective reference point in measuring wage flexibility for women, whose attachment to the labor market is substantially weak in the Turkish context; while in the case of men, long-term unemployment rate yields the highest elasticity. Second, we show that particularly in the case of developing economies where labor markets are segmented by skill level, local unemployment rate disaggregated by education provide more accurate measures of the degree of group-specific wage competition. Finally, using quantile regression we show that wage responsiveness to unemployment can not be assumed to be constant along the wage distribution. In the Turkish case, we find a higher unemployment elasticity of wages around the median segment of wage distribution. |
| Keywords: | Wage curve; unemployment measurements; quantile regression; discouraged workers |
| JEL: | J31 J64 R23 |
| Date: | 2012–05–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:giamwp:2012_002&r=ara |
| By: | Tansel, Aysit; Kan, Elif Oznur |
| Abstract: | In this study, we examine the formal/informal sector earnings differentials in the Turkish labor market using detailed econometric methodologies and a novel panel data set drawn from the 2006-2009 Income and Living Conditions Survey (SILC). In particular, we test if there is evidence of traditional segmented labor markets theory which postulates that informal workers are typically subject to lower remuneration than similar workers in the formal sector. Estimation of standard Mincer earnings equations at the mean using OLS on a pooled sample of workers confirms the existence of an informal penalty, but also shows that almost half of this penalty can be explained by observable variables. Along wage/self-employment divide, our results are in line with the traditional theory that formal-salaried workers are paid significantly higher than their informal counterparts. Confirming the heterogeneity within informal employment, we find that self-employed are often subject to lower remuneration compared to those who are salaried. Moreover, using quantile regression estimations, we show that pay differentials are not uniform along the earnings distribution. More specifically, we find that informal penalty decreases with the earnings level, implying a heterogeneous informal sector with upper-tier jobs carrying a significant premium and lower-tier jobs being largely penalized. Finally, fixed effects estimation of the earnings gap depict that unobserved individual fixed effects when combined with controls for observable individual and employment characteristics explain the pay differentials between formal and informal employment entirely, thereby implying that formal/informal segmentation may not be a stylized fact of the Turkish labor market as previously thought. |
| Keywords: | Earnings gap; formal/informal employment; labor market dynamics; panel data; Turkey |
| JEL: | J40 J31 O17 J21 |
| Date: | 2012–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:38498&r=ara |
| By: | Arda Aktas (Stony Brook University Economics Department); Gokce Uysal (Bahcesehir University Center for Economic and Social Research (Betam)) |
| Abstract: | Gender discrimination in the labor market can take on many forms, the most prominent one being the gender gap in wages. The labor market in Turkey is not an exception. Even though the gender wage gap is 3 percent on average, a closer look reveals important differences along the wage distribution. There is virtually no gender gap at the lower end and men earn 6.47 percent more than women at the median. Surprisingly, women seem to earn 4.99 percent higher wages than men at the top of the wage distribution. Using the quantile regression method, we discuss how the labor market returns differ along the wage distribution. Secondly, we use the Machado-Mata decomposition method to reveal how much of the gender gap at each quantile can be explained by gender differences in characteristics versus gender differences in returns. We find that the gender gap actually widens when we control for basic characteristics such as age, education and tenure. In other words, controlling for gender differences in labor market characteristics reveals that there is gender discrimination in Turkey, as measured by the differences in returns. |
| Keywords: | Gender wage gap, quantile regression, Machado-Mata decomposition |
| Date: | 2011–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bae:wpaper:005&r=ara |
| By: | Jellal , Mohamed |
| Abstract: | We argue that to a better understanding of the causes of unemployment in Morocco, it seems very important to study endogenously the consequences of the interaction between the structure of the labor market and the presence of the minimum wage. Indeed, it was argued that unemployment in Morocco can be caused by the existence of monopsony power of firms offering jobs that do not seem quite decent to workers and this may also explain the large size of the informal sector. It is this fact which justifies the establishment of an appropriate policy in the minimum wage and study its impact on employment in Morocco. This is our current research agenda. |
| Keywords: | Minimum wage law; employment; poverty |
| JEL: | J3 K31 J23 J42 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:38491&r=ara |
| By: | Jellal, Mohamed |
| Abstract: | This paper considers the formation of the urban formal ector wages in the presence of rural migration in a collective bargaining framework. We show in particular that the restoration of full employment in the presence of an informal sector can be implemented through a policy of subsidy depends on the preferences of the union and its bargaining power wage. It also depends on the level of rural sector development. |
| Keywords: | Migration; Informal sector; Formal sector; Collective bargaining ; Unemployment;Policies ;Morocco |
| JEL: | O17 J51 J61 R23 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:38365&r=ara |
| By: | Jellal, Said |
| Abstract: | We show that regional reform that was implemented broke with the regime in 1971, namely the economic region. She may have allowed the legislature to build the basis for a effective decentralization in the region. The new law sets the general operation of the new local government includes measures whose symbolic value is certain. It becomes an opportunity to rise from the ashes of important organizations such as the Higher Council of Planning and the Interdepartmental Committee for Planning and is characterized by the role assigned to the judge, judge and judge acts accountable. With the economic region, the regional action did not create a new dynamic may introduce qualitative changes in the evolving relationship between the state and region. On behalf of the complexity and the extent of the actions, the state assigns a Leadership role as the region, lack of monitoring structures, observations, information banks for support decision is placed offside. The new law on the region which is assumed to bring more decentralization, does affect profoundly the relationship between the state and local governments? She will be a draft outline of a horizontal administrative giving more substance to the relationship between local authorities and their association to the exercise of their powers? And the company will open Moroccan Does its territorial diversity for a long time after being turned to a single center? In any event, if regional institutions are required, even in the context of genuine autonomy, respect the fundamental principles of the general laws of the State, the latter, however, should in no way obscure the fact that one hand the spatial planning which is a material condition sine qua non of socio-economic and even political, the whole community is rather local and regional expertise that are still in the state things simple units dislocated in relation to the devolved administrative organization, and other blatant distortions in space, there are social and economic, real, and require therefore a matter of priority interventions concurrently two spaces of power: national and regional levels. |
| Keywords: | Morocco; regions; decentralization ; reforms |
| JEL: | R58 O18 P21 R11 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:38501&r=ara |
| By: | Jellal, Mohamed |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we consider a theoritical model helping to provide a new insights into the functioning of moroccan labor market. The model examines the impact of imperfect competition among firms with access to specific technologies on the emergence of the new modern economy.The The emergence of this economy is characterized by the size of the employment of workers accepting wage for the specific training needed as well as the firms incentive to invest in new technologies given the competitive structure of the labor market and the product produced and exported under uncertain demand. Indeed it is assumed that each of these firms try to attract workers who are the best match for them ie the best trained and who bear the full cost of training is required for the job offered. Both the long term equilibrium wage offered and population distribution are determined. The structure of this new economy depends on both individual incentives as well as those established by public authorities. |
| Keywords: | Formal sector; Education ;Job matching; wages competition |
| JEL: | O17 J31 I21 J24 J23 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:38465&r=ara |