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on Central and Western Asia |
| By: | Ozsoz, Emre; Gurarda, Sevin; Ates, Abidin |
| Abstract: | Turkey is one of the eight countries that currently have a corporate governance index for firms listed on its main stock exchange (Borsa Istanbul). As in the case of many emerging markets, the country’s business landscape is characterized by family owned conglomerates some of which have recently become a favorite target for foreign direct and portfolio investment. By using corporate governance data on 22 publicly traded Turkish companies we estimate the determinants of corporate governance ratings for these companies with a focus on ownership structure. Our results show that family ownership has a negative impact on corporate governance ratings while foreign ownership has a weak but positive effect. |
| Keywords: | Corporate Governance, Turkish companies, Ownership Structure |
| JEL: | G3 G32 L20 |
| Date: | 2014–09–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:58293&r=cwa |
| By: | Sengul, Gonul (Istanbul School of Central Banking and the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey); Tasci, Murat (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland) |
| Abstract: | This paper measures flow rates into and out of unemployment for Turkey and uses them to estimate the unemployment rate trend, that is, the unemployment rate to which the economy converges in the long run. In doing so, the paper explores the role of labor force participation in determining the unemployment rate trend. We find an inverse V-shaped pattern for Turkey’s unemployment rate trend over time, currently between 8.5 percent and 9 percent, with an increasing labor market turnover. We also find that allowing an explicit role for participation changes the results substantially, initially reducing the â€natural†rate but getting closer to the baseline over time. Finally, we show that this parsimonious model can be used to forecast unemployment in Turkey with relative ease and accuracy. |
| Keywords: | unemployment; unemployment flows; labor force participation; Turkey |
| JEL: | E24 E32 J64 |
| Date: | 2014–10–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedcwp:1422&r=cwa |
| By: | Gonul Sengul; Murat Tasci |
| Abstract: | This paper measures flow rates into and out of unemployment for Turkey and uses these rates to estimate the unemployment rate trend, that is the level of the unemployment rate the economy converges to in the long-run. In doing so, the paper explores the role of the labor force participation in determining the trend unemployment. We find an inverse V-shaped pattern for the unemployment rate trend over time in Turkey, currently standing between 8.5 and 9 percent, with an increasing labor market turnover. We also find that allowing for an explicit role for participation changes the results substantially, reducing the “natural” rate at first, but then getting closer to the baseline over time. Finally, we show that this parsimonious model can be used for forecasting unemployment in Turkey with relative ease and accuracy. |
| Keywords: | Firm size, Wage gap, Informal job, Wage posting, Subgame perfection, Taxes, Social networks |
| JEL: | E24 E32 J64 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tcb:wpaper:1435&r=cwa |
| By: | Aysit Tansel (Department of Economics, METU; Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) Bonn, Germany; Economic Research Forum (ERF) Cairo, Egypt); Basak Dalgic (Department of Public Finance, Hacettepe University); Aytekin Güven (Department of Economics, Abant Izzet Baysal University) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates wage inequality and wage mobility in Turkey using the Surveys on Income and Living Conditions (SILC). This is the first paper that explores wage mobility for Turkey. It differs from the existing literature by providing analyses of wage inequality and wage mobility over various socioeconomic groups such as gender, age, education and sector of economic activity. We first present an overview of the evolution of wages and wage inequality over the period 2005-2011. Next, we compute several measures of wage mobility and explore the link between wage inequality and wage mobility. Further, we compute the transition matrices which show movements of individuals across the wage distribution from one period to another and investigate the determinants of transition probabilities using a multinomial logit model. The results show that overall the real wages increased over the study period and wage inequality exhibits a slight increase.. Wage inequality is one of the highest among the European Union (EU) countries. The wage mobility in Turkey is lower than what is observed in the European Union countries although it increases as time horizon expands. Wage mobility has an equalizing impact on the wage distribution, however; this impact is not substantial enough to overcome the high and persistent wage inequality in Turkey. |
| Keywords: | Wage Inequality, Wage Mobility, Heterogeneity, Turkey. |
| JEL: | D31 D63 J31 J60 |
| Date: | 2014–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:met:wpaper:1414&r=cwa |
| By: | Balkan, Binnur; Tumen, Semih |
| Abstract: | Observationally equivalent workers are paid higher wages in larger firms. This fact is often named as the "firm-size wage gap" and is regarded as a key empirical puzzle. Using micro-level data from Turkey, we document a new stylized fact: the firm-size wage gap is more pronounced for informal (unregistered) jobs than for formal (registered) jobs. To explain this fact, we develop a two-stage wage-posting game with market imperfections and segmented markets, the solution to which produces wages as a function of firm size in a well-defined subgame-perfect equilibrium. The model proposes two explanations. First, taxes on formal employment generate a wedge between formal and informal size wage gaps. Thus, government policy can potentially affect the magnitude of the firm-size wage gaps. The second explanation features a market-based framework with strategic interactions. Relative to small firms, large firms typically post higher wages for both formal and informal jobs they open. A high-wage formal job attracts a larger pool of applicants than a high-wage informal job. The larger pool of applicants for the formal job, in turn, allows the firm to somewhat lower the initial wage offer, while this second-round effect is negligible for informal jobs. As a result, size differentials are lower in formal jobs than informal jobs. We argue that the observed patterns in the use of social connections in job search and heterogeneity in job preferences can be used to justify the validity of this second mechanism. |
| Keywords: | Firm size; wage gap; informal job; wage posting; subgame perfection; taxes; social networks. |
| JEL: | C78 J21 J31 L11 |
| Date: | 2014–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:58565&r=cwa |
| By: | Roman Horváth (Institute of Economic Studies, Charles University); Ayaz Zeynalov |
| Abstract: | We examine the effect of natural resource abundance on economic performance during the 1996–2011 period in the 15 independent countries that formerly comprised the Soviet Union. These countries were a largely homogeneous group with respect to institutional development, liberalization and economic performance; however, these countries began to demonstrate marked differences from one another with respect to these factors during the transition, which has resulted in unique cross-section and time variation. Using several panel regression models that address the endogeneity issues, our results suggest that natural resources crowd out manufacturing sector unless the quality of domestic institutions is sufficiently high. Conversely, trade policies do not help convert the natural resource curse into a blessing. |
| Keywords: | natural resource curse, institutions, manufacturing, post-Soviet countries |
| JEL: | O11 O13 Q30 |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ost:wpaper:341&r=cwa |