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on Central and Western Asia |
| By: | Aras, Osman Nuri; Öztürk, Mustafa |
| Abstract: | The effects of the main macroeconomic determinants on the sovereign credit rating of Turkey assigned by Standard & Poor’s are analyzed in this paper. As the main macroeconomic determinants, inflation rate, economic growth rate, foreign direct investment, external debt, current account debt and savings are taken into account in this study. The data related to Turkey in this study covers between 1992-2016. In this study, the Granger causality test and the OLS regression model are used for that correlations of the variables. Outcomes of the analysis show that just two in six macroeconomic determinants are effective on the sovereign credit rating. According to the results of the study, external debt and inflation rate have a statistically significant relationship with the sovereign credit rating of Turkey. The outcomes show that external debt and the inflation rate have negative effects on the sovereign credit rating of the country. The coefficient of the external debt and the inflation is negative which means that if the inflation or external debt increases the rating decreases in appropriate with the theory. On the other hand, the effects of the other four macroeconomic variables are not significant. The results of the study indicate that some factors other than the primary macroeconomic determinants are effective on the sovereign credit ratings of Turkey. The results also unveil the door for the criticism that the decisions of the credit rating agencies are biased. |
| Keywords: | Sovereign risk, Sovereign credit rating, Credit rating agencies, Macroeconomic determinants, Turkey. |
| JEL: | E02 F30 G20 G24 G29 |
| Date: | 2018–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:86642&r=cwa |
| By: | Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés; Hardy, Daniel |
| Abstract: | There are many challenges to building firm competitiveness in posttransition economies, particularly with the intensification of as global trade integration. Intranation variations in firm competitiveness are also stark, highlighting the need for policies to overcome the legacy of pretransition economic structures. Utilizing data from Georgia's annual firm census and household surveys, this paper analyzes the nature of the country's competitive landscape—measured as labor productivity—over the period 2006–2012. The results of our empirical estimations reveal that although a large proportion of a firm's competitiveness is associated with its own characteristics (sorting and compositional effects), location-specific factors are also highly relevant. In particular, the extent of agglomeration, human capital endowments, and local expenditures—such as transport infrastructure investments—play a significant role in conditioning firm-level competitiveness. Given current regional endowments, these findings highlight the significant attention that needs to be paid to building capacities in less-favored areas, not only to ensure that trade integration does not harm Georgia's less-favored regions, but also to make further progress in developing the country's private sector and fully maximize the export potential across its full stock of enterprises. |
| Keywords: | competitiveness; productivity; firms; Georgia transition economies |
| JEL: | N0 R14 J01 |
| Date: | 2017–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:67543&r=cwa |
| By: | Maksym Obrizan (Kyiv School of Economics); Karine Torosyan (International School of Economics at TSU); Norberto Pignatti (International School of Economics at TSU) |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this study is to analyze tobacco spending in Georgia using various machine learning methods applied to a sample of 10,757 households from Integrated Household Survey collected by GeoStat in 2016. Previous research has shown that smoking is the leading cause of death for 35-69 year olds. In addition, tobacco expenditures may constitute as much as 17% of the household budget. Five different algorithms (ordinary least squares, random forest, two gradient boosting methods and deep learning) were applied to 8,173 households (or 76.0%) in the train set. Out-of-sample predictions were then obtained for 2,584 remaining households in the test set. Under the default settings random forest algorithm showed the best performance with more than 10% improvement in terms of root-mean-square error (RMSE). Improved accuracy and availability of machine learning tools in R calls for active use of these methods by policy makers and scientists in health economics, public health and related fields. |
| Keywords: | Tobacco Spending, Household Survey, Georgia, Machine Learning |
| JEL: | I12 L66 D12 |
| Date: | 2018–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rcd:wpaper:3184&r=cwa |
| By: | International Monetary Fund |
| Abstract: | Georgia has legislated numerical fiscal rules for the main fiscal aggregates. The Economic Liberty Act (ELA), which was adopted in 2011 and came into force in 2014, defines numerical upper limits for the state debt (60 percent of GDP), the budget balance (3 percent of GDP), and expenditures (30 percent of GDP). While the debt and budget balance rules (BBRs) have been adhered to since their introduction, expenditures have exceeded the legislative limit, albeit by a small margin. Previous IMF technical assistance (TA) identified several issues in the application of the fiscal rules. A Fiscal Transparency Evaluation (FTE), conducted by the Fiscal Affairs Department in late 2016, found some gaps in reporting of general government revenue and expenditures against the standards set out in the IMF’s Government Finance Statistics Manual 2014 (GFSM2014) as well as gaps in the assessment and reporting on compliance with the fiscal rules. The FTE recommended a review of the fiscal rules framework, and this report summarizes the findings and recommendations of this review. |
| Date: | 2018–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfscr:18/132&r=cwa |