nep-ara New Economics Papers
on Arab World
Issue of 2013‒05‒11
nine papers chosen by
Quentin Wodon
World Bank

  1. The Development of SMEs in Turkey By Nurrachmi , Rininta Nurrachmi; Abd Samad , Khairunnisa; Foughali, Ibrahim
  2. Bank Competition and Outreach: Evidence from Turkey. By A. FARUK AYSAN; M. DISLI; K. SCHOORS
  3. Does Education Expenditure Promote Economic Growth in Saudi Arabia? An Econometric Analysis By Ageli, Dr Mohammed Moosa
  4. Determinants of Adoption and Spatial Diversity of Wheat Varieties on Household Farms in Turkey By Negassa, Asfaw; Hellin, Jonathan; Shiferaw, Bekele A.
  5. Estimating Money Demand Function by a Smooth Transition Regression Model: An Evidence for Turkey By Sahin, Afsin
  6. Time Value of Money in Islamic Perspective and the Practice in Islamic Banking Implications By Nurrachmi, Rininta; Fathia , Mia; Mad-ahdin, Ashanee; Radenarmad, Ninasrin; Akhtar , Rulia
  7. Heterogeneity in the Egyptian informal labour market: choice or obligation?. By Rawaa Harati
  8. A Multidimensional Perspective of Poverty, and its Relation with the Informal Labor Market: An Application to Ecuadorian and Turkish Data. By Armagan Tuna Aktuna Gunes; Carla Canelas
  9. ERAWATCH country reports 2011: Turkey By Sirin Elci; Mariana Chioncel

  1. By: Nurrachmi , Rininta Nurrachmi; Abd Samad , Khairunnisa; Foughali, Ibrahim
    Abstract: SMEs have become key catalyst for economic development in Turkey. As the member of EU, SMEs in Turkey is open to borderless opportunities to trade in international market whereby it become major export to the European countries. However, the vulnerable of Turkey’s economic condition and other issues have cause difficulty to the SMEs to develop. Hence, this paper will observe the SME condition, its contribution to economic development in Turkey as well as to explore the constraints, issue and challenge. Also, it critically examine the improvement of SMEs particularly the Strategy & future perspectives in short, mid and & long term. The study employs “the kobayachi's micro & macro models” as research methodology. The finding of the study shows that, by employing the Micro analysis, SMEs in Turkey is confronting critical issues such as financial bottleneck, lack of marketing and innovative activities. However, there are many policies and strategic plans were embarked to support the bright future of SMEs in Turkey by way of short, mid and long term plan.
    Keywords: SME, Turkey, Development, Improvement
    JEL: O11
    Date: 2012–11
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:46817&r=ara
  2. By: A. FARUK AYSAN; M. DISLI; K. SCHOORS
    Abstract: In light of the importance of banking sector outreach and given concerns that competition may adversely affect it, this study explores the empirical linkage between banking structure and outreach in Turkey for the period 1988–2010. Bank-, province-, and bank-province-level estimation results indicate that competition is in general conducive to the outreach of banks. We do not find evidence for collusive behavior between banks when they have multimarket contact. On the province-level, thepresence of foreign owned banks is associated with higher outreach, while at the bank-province levelwe observe that outreach of domestic banks exceeds that of foreign banks. Together, these results suggest that there are pro-competitive spillover effects from foreign banks to their domestic counterparts.
    Keywords: bank competition, multimarket contact, bank outreach.
    JEL: E44 F43 G21
    Date: 2013–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rug:rugwps:13/839&r=ara
  3. By: Ageli, Dr Mohammed Moosa
    Abstract: This paper investigates the Keynesian Relations and Education Expenditure in Saudi Arabia during the period (1970-2012) for real Oil GDP and Non Oil GDP. Keynesian Relations investigated that fundamental economic growth is validity to the education growth. In the previous tudies have been tested the three versions of Keynesian Relations to support the existence of long-run relationship between education expenditure and economic growth. We used a method as a time series econometrics techniques to examine how far Keynesian Relations validity can be applied in Saudi economy. The results obtained from the analyses find that the Keynesian proposition can explain the growth of education in Saudi Arabia, which holds for both the Oil and Non Oil income cases. The findings also note that the existence of strong causality for all of Keynesian Relations versions in the long run.
    Keywords: Keynesian Relations, Ordinary Least Square (OLS), Co integration, Granger Causality, Error Correction Model (ECM), Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF), Education Expenditure, Economic Growth, Saudi Arabia
    JEL: C22 E62 H52 I21
    Date: 2013–04–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:46673&r=ara
  4. By: Negassa, Asfaw; Hellin, Jonathan; Shiferaw, Bekele A.
    Abstract: The Heckman two-stage estimation procedure was used to investigate factors influencing the adoption of modern and/or landrace wheat varieties and spatial diversity of wheat varieties in Turkey. In the first stage, the multinomial logit choice model (MNLM) was used to determine factors influencing farmers’ adoption of modern varieties (MVs) and/or landrace varieties (LVs) of wheat. Conditional on the choice of a given wheat variety or combination of MVs and LVs, a Tobit regression model was used to assess the determinants of on-farm spatial diversity of wheat varieties in the second stage. Our empirical approach allows for the analysis of partial adoption decision of wheat varieties and controls for self-selection problem in analyzing the determinants of spatial diversity of wheat varieties. The empirical model was conceptualized based on random utility model(RUM).The analysis was based on cross-sectional survey data collected on 486 sample households in six provinces of Turkey. Results showed that household size, the number of owned cattle, the number of buildings on farm, farm size, farm land fragmentation, the percentage of irrigable farm plots and regional variations are the important factors in determining the farmers’ first-stage choice of wheat variety types. The selfselection problem was significant only in one of the three cases for the landrace wheat varieties. In the second stage, the farm size and land fragmentation were found to be the key variables influencing the level of on-farm spatial diversity of wheat varieties. The results showed that considerable spatial wheat genetic diversity was maintained on-farm at the household level, mainly through the simultaneous adoption of modern and traditional wheat varieties. Growing a combination of modern and landrace wheat varieties was observed to yield significantly higher level of spatial diversity of wheat genetic resources as compared to growing modern varieties alone or landrace varieties alone. This result suggests that the modern and landrace wheat varieties can coexist and could still support more on-farm spatial diversity of wheat genetic resources. This finding has significant implications for future extension, research and policy efforts for on-farm conservation and utilization of wheat genetic resources in Turkey. There is a need for the government and private sector research and extension efforts to support farmers’ use of both modern and landrace varieties, for example, in terms of seed supply, provision of extension and credit services and marketing support instead of just giving undue priority to popularization and adoption of modern varieties alone.
    Keywords: Agricultural and Food Policy, Consumer/Household Economics,
    Date: 2012–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:cimmsp:147106&r=ara
  5. By: Sahin, Afsin
    Abstract: The money supply process is assumed to be fixed in economic literature or at least there is a central bank trying to control the liquidity in the economy. On the other hand, the demand side is more volatile and more uncertain. This situation hinders the homogenous and symmetric information assumptions of the monetary models. The amount of money demanded is a dynamic process and changes depending on the transition variable in concern. The money demand increases in the boom periods of the economy but may diminish in the recessions gradually. Therefore the money demand function indicates an asymmetric behavior and nonlinearity. This paper estimates the money demand function by including the inflation uncertainty, that is assumed to be a transition variable for a small-open economy, Turkey by using the monthly data spanning from January, 1990 to May, 2012. The parameters of the money demand function are estimated by the Smooth Transition Regression (STR) models. While modelling the nonlinearity, an appropriate logistic function is determined. The dependent variables that are used to estimate the money function are gold, interest rate, inflation uncertainty, share prices, exchange rate and income. The inflation uncertainty data is gathered from the conditional variances of a specified EGARCH model. The results of the paper have several policy implications for the monetary authorities. First, the behavior of the money demand and its determinants are crucial at the times of adopting the inflation targeting regime. The stability of money demand is also related to the stability of inflation. So the results of the paper may be beneficial for the policy makers and monetary authorities during their decision making process.
    Keywords: Money Demand; Inflation Uncertainty; Smooth Transition Regression; Nonlinearity.
    JEL: C58 E41 E51
    Date: 2013–04–29
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:46851&r=ara
  6. By: Nurrachmi, Rininta; Fathia , Mia; Mad-ahdin, Ashanee; Radenarmad, Ninasrin; Akhtar , Rulia
    Abstract: Time Value of money is a fundamental financial theory and a basic element in the monetary system. This concept serves as the foundation for all other notions in finance. It impacts consumer finance, business finance, and government finance. Basically the Conventional Time value of money results from the concept of interest that prohibited in Islamic principle. Moreover, there are several basic principles that caused the Conventional theory views “Money” and “commodity” differs and compares with the principle as defined by Islam. This leads the time valuation of money in Islamic Perspective is totally different from the conventional. The objective of this study is to discuss the concept of Time Value of Money in Islamic Perspective and its advantages. The paper attempts to analyze the difference between the concept of Time in Islamic and Conventional Perspective. Furthermore, we are going to highlight how Islamic Banks applied the concept of Time Value of Money in Islamic View to their implications in the practice. In addition, this study observed the practical issues and challenges in applying the concept of Time Value of Money in some financial products which are Murabahah, Istisna and Salam.
    Keywords: Islam, Islamic Banking, Shariah, Time Value for Money
    JEL: A11 Z1 Z12
    Date: 2012–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:46818&r=ara
  7. By: Rawaa Harati (Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne)
    Abstract: This paper provides historical and empirical arguments that can explain the development of the Egyptian informal sector. After recalling the various approaches proposed in the literatures, it identifies the configuration that overrides the Egyptian labor market by allowing for the heterogeneity of informal jobs and therefore the existence of different segments within the informal sector using a mixture model. It concludes that the Egyptian informal labor market in 2006 was composed of two segments with a distinct wage equations. This may point to the existence of barriers to entry to each sector, e.g. fixed cost related to social stigma which prevent people from working in the sector which offers them the highest expected wage.
    Keywords: Informal market, development economics, finite mixture model, Egypt, segmentation, selection bias.
    JEL: O17 J42
    Date: 2013–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mse:cesdoc:13032&r=ara
  8. By: Armagan Tuna Aktuna Gunes (Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne - Paris School of Economics); Carla Canelas (Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne - Paris School of Economics)
    Abstract: In this paper, we study the links between time use, informal labor market, and poverty measures in two countries that strongly differ on their level of development, by means of a multidimensional poverty index, and a bivariate probit model to assess the changes in the joint probability of working in the informal sector while being considered poor.
    Keywords: Poverty, informality, time use.
    JEL: D0 D3
    Date: 2013–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mse:cesdoc:13031&r=ara
  9. By: Sirin Elci (Technopolis Group, Turkey); Mariana Chioncel (JRC-IPTS)
    Abstract: The main objective of the ERAWATCH Annual Country Reports is to characterise and assess the performance of national research systems and related policies in a structured manner that is comparable across countries. The 2011 country reports assess the evolution on the national R&D investments targets, the efficiency and effectiveness of national policies and investments into R&D, the articulation between education, research and innovation, with an increased focus on the last two in terms of their wider governance and policy mix. The reports for EU MS and AS integrates in the assessment the evolution of the national policy mixes in the perspective of the Europe 2020 Strategy goals and on the realisation and better governance of ERA.
    Keywords: European research and innovation policy, ERAWATCH, European Research Area, Policy Mixes, Transnational and International Cooperation; NETWATCH; ERA Nets; Foresight; Joint programming of research; Researchers, Universities; European Foresight Platform (EFP); modelling, linking Qualitative and Quantitative methods.
    Date: 2012–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc77770&r=ara

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