Modern portfolio theory stipulates that an investor can reduce systemic risk simply by diversifying its assets across national boundaries. Therefore, the issue of whether stock markets are cointegrated carries important implications for portfolio diversification. This study aims to identify and model a relationship between four equity markets namely, Turkish, European, North American and emerging markets using cointegration technique. We investigated the existence of cointegrating equation between four stock market indices and also the existence of a structural break. During our investigation, we constructed a vector error correction model (VECM) to observe short and long run relationships between the four markets. We used daily data from the October 23, 1995 until November 20, 2009 and relevant Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) indices, namely MSCI Turkey, MSCI North America, MSCI Europe and MSCI Emerging Markets. Our first finding was that the Turkish equity markets are cointegrated with European, North American and emerging markets indicates that investing in the Turkish equity market does not provide an opportunity for risk diversification for international investors in the long run. It is only possible to benefit from the discrepancies which may occur in the short run. Furthermore, we identified a structural break contemporaneous with crisis of November 2000.

This thesis examines the life-cycle profile of informal employment in Turkey. To achieve this goal cohort analysis technique and 2000-2007 Household Labor Force Survey micro level data of State Institute of Statistics is used. Informal sector is composed of people working without social security coverage due to their current jobs. Analyzes are conducted both for the total sample and six education groups separately. Besides informal employment, labor force participation and unemployment rates are also examined and using these variables net transitions between the sectors over the life-cycle are tired to be observed. According to the results / informal employment rate decreases at young ages, relatively stable at middle ages and then increases rapidly at older ages. Moreover, strong cohort effects are found in many variables and the cross section profiles differ from the true life-cycle profiles remarkably.

This study analyzes the effect of capital outflows on economic growth though the channels described in sudden stop literature. Using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach / it is found that there is a cointegration between capital inflows, real exchange rate and real GDP. The results show that there is a significant positive long-run relation between capital inflows and growth. It is also found that capital inflows affect real output in the short run. The results show that real exchange rate is not a significant determinant of real output both in the short run and long run. Moreover, in order to capture the dynamic responses, a vector autoregressive (VAR) methodology has been employed. The results show that a negative innovation in capital inflows causes real exchange rate depreciation and output contraction.

This thesis measures the effects of transformation of Turkish banks from a &ldquo / traditional&rdquo / one to a &ldquo / modern&rdquo / one over the period 2002-2009 and 2008 global financial crisis on efficiency of Turkish banks. Malmquist Total Factor Productivity Index is constructed using data envelopment analysis to measure the efficiency change in Turkish banking sector. The paper also analyzes the sensitivity of efficiency measures to different descriptions of inputs and outputs by employing two different approaches to describe the inputs and outputs of a bank. The major difference between the approaches is the use of deposits and non-deposit funds as input or output. Both confirm that the efficiency of the Turkish banking sector had increased over the period under examination and 2008 global financial crisis had adversely affected the efficiency of Turkish banks. The results show that the banks which had advanced in transformation to modern banking before 2001 financial crisis had experienced higher than the average increments in efficiency in the post-2001 financial crisis period.

Mobile devices are becoming widely common today. As the number of mobile devices continue to grow all around the world, its functionality is extending and mobile technologies are gaining more popularity in every aspect of our life. Today, wide range of mobile services is offered to people. The purpose of our study is examining the customer value of mobile services for individuals or citizens. A value model for mobile services has been proposed with five dimensions: Functional Value, Social Value, Emotional Value, Epistemic Value and Economic Value. The effect on each value dimension on Intention to Use (ITU) is aimed to be determined. A survey instrument for mobile Internet services and short message services (SMS) has been developed to validate the proposed model. After assuring the reliability of instrument with a pilot study, data was collected from 303 people working in information and communication technologies (ICT) sector in Turkey. For analyzing proposed model variance-based structural equation modeling (partial least squares) was used. Before evaluating model, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted to indentify underlying constructs. Based on EFA results, Functional Value was found to have sub-dimensions namely: Ubiquity Value, Performance Value and Security Value. The measurement model was analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The structural model was analyzed using predictive power. For both mobile Internet and SMS, moderate predictive power has been gathered. Finally, the effect of each value dimension on intention to use (ITU) has been evaluated. Ubiquity Value, Performance Value and Epistemic Value have significant effect on ITU for mobile Internet. On the other hand, Economic Value and Performance Value have significant effect on ITU The indications of this research will be valuable for providing information about customer value of current mobile services.

The effect of fertility on female labor supply decisions in Turkey is analyzed in this thesis. Taking the endogeneity between fertility and labor supply into account, the causal effect of fertility is interpreted in an instrumental variables estimation framework. Results of the analysis indicate that fertility estimates of sex preference and twin based instruments on short term labor supply of women differ substantially. While fertility increases due to sex preference instrument cause no significant change in labor supply decisions, unexpected fertility shocks by twin instrument have an adverse effect on female labor supply.

Social accounting matrix (SAM) is one of the tools used in regional economic analysis, enabling understanding the structure of the economy as well as analyzing the impacts of policies or exogenous shocks. In this thesis, a two-region SAM of Turkey is constructed for the year 2002 and the findings of multiplier analysis are presented. To this end, first, a two-region input-output (I-O) table is constructed using location quotient (LQ) method and using this two-region I-O table, a two-region SAM is compiled. Then, multiplier analysis is performed on the two-region SAM constructed. According to the results of the multiplier analysis, through an exogenous shock amounting to 1% of GDP gives better results both in absolute and distributional terms when it is originated in region East than region West. This thesis should construct a first step towards more comprehensive analyses including higher level of sectoral detail and micro-data.

The most important market segmentation in sports and entertainment industry is the competition between customers that buy bundle and single tickets. A common selling practice is starting the selling season with bundle ticket sales and switching to selling single tickets later on. The aim of this practice is to increase the number of customers that buy bundles, to create a fund before the season starts and to increase the load factor of the games with low demand. In this thesis, we investigate the effect of time dependent demand on dynamic switching times and the potential revenue gain over the case where the demand rate is assumed to be constant with time.

This thesis aims to investigate both the causes and effects of migration in the Middle East and North Africa with a view to identifying the patterns and trends that characterize migration phenomena in the region. It is argued that migration is a significant variable to understand the economic, social and political dynamics of the development that the MENA countries have experienced since imperial and/or colonial times. In its different variants, migration has been conditioned primarily by economic vicissitudes. With the exception of the Gulf states, all of the MENA countries have experienced significant levels of immigration as well as emigration especially since the 1980s when the structural effects of the oil crisis (1973) surfaced. The Iraq-Iran War of the 1980s and the Gulf War of the 1990s enhanced the existing trends of migration. In the absence of political reform and economic restructuring, the economies of the region have rejuvenated the conditions of migration. Having drawn upon sociological theories, political histories and economic analyses to identify and discuss the patterns and trends of migration, the present study argues in complete contrast to a policy-oriented Western scholarship that migration is far from being a stimulus for economic growth across the MENA countries.

Informality has been a widespread fact in most of developing countries. Especially after the implementation of liberalization policies in the 1980s, informal sector has expanded, and informal employment has been more attractive in the Turkish economy. The aim of this thesis is to examine whether there is wage gap between formal and informal employment in Turkey for the years 2007 and 2008. In order to test if the determinants of wages are different, selection corrected wage equations are estimated for manufacturing and service sectors for men and women separately by using the Household Labor Force Survey micro level data of TURKSTAT. We also estimated Multinomial Logit model in order to be able to take the sector selection process into account. According to our estimation results, there was a significant wage gap between formal and informal employment in Turkey for the years 2007 and 2008, even after controlling for a number of individual-specific characteristics. This indicates the existence of the segmented labor market in terms of wages in Turkey, as it is asserted by the number of researchers arguing against the neo-classical labor market theory.