A Short Review of the Long History of Turkish High Inflation

After experiencing high and persistent inflation for more than two decades, Turkey is entering a period of single-digit inflation again. Following a summary of the macroeconomic developments occurred since early 1970s, this paper attempts to survey the empirical literature both on the dynamics of chronic inflation and on the possible effects of disinflation in Turkey.High inflation, causes of inflation, inertia, exchange rates, disinflation, stabilization policies, Turkish economy

An Analysis of Early Warning Signals of Currency Crises in Turkey, 1986-2004

Within a signals approach framework à la Kaminsky, Lizondo and Reinhart, this paper aims both to detect the early warning signals of currency crises in Turkey and to discuss the reliability of an early warning system for this country. To determine major leading indicators of currency crises in Turkey, more than 45 variables are tested, and by using the most relevant 15 variables, a composite index is constructed to estimate the probabilities of currency crises in the country.Currency crises, signals approach, early warning system, real exchange rate misalignment, foreign trade, Turkish economy

A Strategic Orientation Model for the Turkish Local e-Governments

Increased environmental uncertainty and complexity along with budget constraints requires public organizations to manage strategically as never before. The environments of public organizations have become increasingly turbulent and more firmly interconnected. During the past two decades, governments have innovated new management tools such as strategic planning, outsourcing, and performance measurement to deal with complex governance and networks to provide their public services. Meanwhile, the drive to implement e-government has resulted in the formulation of many e-government visions and strategies, driven by their own sets of political, economic, and social factors and requirements. With this regard, recent developments in e-service provision of Turkish Local e-Governments deserve empirical and well-structured research. Building on the recent literature, this study draws a strategic orientation framework and tests it by analyzing the contents of strategic documents of 114 Turkish Local e-Governments.Turkish Local e-Governments; e-Government Strategy; Strategic Orientation Model;

The Labour Market Implications of Large-Scale Restructuring in the Banking Sector in Turkey

This paper is concerned with the causes, timing and effects of banking sector restructuring and financial crisis in Turkey. The main focus of the study, however, is on labour market implications of the banking crisis and banking reform in recent years. The paper is organised as follows. Section 2 presents a brief summary of the macroeconomic background to the latest banking sector crisis in Turkey. In section 3, the efforts of recent Turkish Governments towards restructuring and rehabilitation of the banking sector are considered. Then, following a statistical review of the main features of the Turkish banking sector, section 4 focuses on the labour market problems that can be linked to the Government's restructuring and rehabilitation programme in banking. Section 5 draws some lessons from this restructuring programme. Finally, section 6 concludes with some remarks on future prospects in the banking sector.restructuring; labour market; unemployment; banking sector; banking crisis; Turkey

A Short Review of the Long History of Turkish High Inflation

After experiencing high and persistent inflation for more than two decades, Turkey is entering a period of single-digit inflation again. Following a summary of the macroeconomic developments occurred since the early 1970s, this paper attempts to survey the empirical literature both on the dynamics of chronic inflation and on the possible effects of disinflation in Turkey.

Technological Developments and their Effects on World Trade: Any Implications for Governments?

This paper summarizes new developments in world trade, technological changes worldwide and their implications for recent theoretical studies in economics. After defining the economic globalization and schematizing its relations with international trade, economic growth and technological change, dramatic increases in world trade in goods, services and financial assets in last decades are statistically documented in Chapter 2. Theoretical studies of economists on international trade and economic growth are certainly affected by the fact that the actual technological developments have strong implications for world trade and output growth. In Chapter 3, this new perspectives in economics are discussed. Last chapter presents some concluding remarks with special reference to the role of governments in the process of technological development within an increasingly globalizing world economy.Technological development, international trade, new trade and growth theories, technology policy, education policy, health policy

Causes of Inflation in Turkey: A Literature Survey with Special Reference to Theories of Inflation

Turkey has experienced high and persistent inflation for more than twenty years. This chapter attempts firstly to survey the extremely broad literature on theories of inflation, in order to be able to classify, understand and discuss the dynamics of inflation more carefully. In this chapter, it is mainly argued that inflation may be interpreted as a net result of sophisticated and continuous interactions of demand-side (or monetary) shocks, supply-side (or real) shocks, price-adjustment (or inertial) factors and political processes (or institutional factors). The second aim of the chapter is to compare the existing empirical studies on Turkish inflation, by considering their sample period, data frequency, empirical methods, modeled macroeconomic variables and main results. Most of the studies reviewed here seem to have focused primarily on demand-side determinants (e. g., monetary growth and budget deficits), and partially on some supply-side factors (e. g., nominal exchange rates and oil prices). On the other hand, the components, degree and effects of inflation inertia need to be investigated in more detail. In the future, the modeling attempts of the inflationary dynamics in Turkey would profit from the so-called “new political macroeconomics” because the role of the political process and institutions is not a weak explanatory factor of Turkish inflation that is easily ignored.Inflation theories, causes of inflation, political economy of inflation, Turkey

Monitoring Banking Sector Fragility

In the financial crisis literature, it is usually argued that, contrary to the case of currency crises, building a time series index to identify banking crisis episodes is highly difficult, particularly because of the lack of reliable data on banking sector variables (non-performing loans, etc.). Accordingly, existing methods applied to pinpoint banking crisis years are generally event-based, such as that used by Caprio and Klingebiel (1996 and 1999) and Lindgren et al. (1996). This paper, however, proposes a weighted banking sector fragility index to measure changes in banks' vulnerability to crisis. Using monthly sectoral data for selected 22 countries, it is argued that this type of a fragility index seems to be highly useful in measurement and monitoring of changes in banking sector fragility. That is, it significantly may contribute to policy makers' efforts towards early detection of approaching banking sector difficulties. [To download the country-specific BSF indices: http://politics.ankara.edu.tr/~kibritci/banking/]Banking sector fragility; banking crises; Argentina; Bolivia; Brazil; Chile; Indonesia; Israel; Japan; Jordan; Kenya; Malaysia; Malta; Mexico; Pakistan; Peru; Philippines; Poland; South Korea; Sweden; Thailand; Trinidad and Tobago; Turkey; and Venezuela

On the Smithian Origins of "New" Trade and Growth Theories

Adam Smith (1776) is generally ignored as an international trade theorist in textbooks and surveys because of the common belief that he only confirmed the rule of absolute advantages to explain structure of foreign trade. On the other hand, many textbooks and surveys on growth theories simply overlook Smith’s significant contributions to economic growth theory. However, his vent-for-surplus approach may be interpreted as a pioneering study which stresses the importance of economies-of- scale in explaining the structure of foreign trade. Furthermore, in Smith (1776), both learning by doing and economies-of-scale are crucial to explain long-run economic growth. This short paper addresses to the undeniable influence of Smith's concepts such as "extent of the market", "division of labor", "improved dexterity in every particular workman" and "simple inventions coming from workman" on both recent trade and growth models. The note mainly is based on a schematic outline of Smith's ideas on the nature and causes of the wealth of nations.History of economic thought, Adam Smith, international trade theory, vent-for-surplus, economies-of-scale, learning by doing, externalities, endogenous growth