Among better-educated employed workers, the fraction of full-time full-year (FTFY) workers is quite high and stable over time in the U.S. Among those with low education levels, however, this fraction is much lower and considerably more volatile. These observations suggest that the composition of unobserved skills is subject to sharp movements within low-educated employed workers, while the scale of these movements is potentially much smaller within high-educated ones. The standard college premium framework accounts for the observed shifts between education categories, but it cannot account for unobserved compositional changes within education categories. This thesis uses Heckman&#039 / s two-step estimator on repeated Current Population Survey cross sections to calculate a relative supply series that corrects for unobserved compositional shifts due to selection in and out of the FTFY status. We find that the well-documented deceleration in the growth rate of relative supply of college-equivalent workers after mid-1980s becomes even more pronounced once we correct for selectivity. This casts further doubt on the relevance of the plain skill-biased technical change hypothesis. We conclude that what happens to the within-group skill composition for low-educated groups is critical for fully understanding the trends in the relative supply of college workers in the United States.

This study aims to provide an empirical investigation of Postal Services pricing in Turkey by way of computing Ramsey prices and examining the sensitivity of Ramsey prices to changes in demand and cost parameters. In this study, the Ramsey pricing problem is stated as maximizing a welfare function subject to the Post Office attaining a certain degree of profitability. The conditions necessary for the Post Office to be able to price efficiently have implications for Ramsey pricing. We estimate demand functions and cost structure of letters and express mail using data from Turkish Postal Services. The robustness of the Ramsey rule is assessed under alternative estimates of demand and similarly, in the absence of reliable data, under alternative intervals of marginal cost. Ramsey prices for two letter categories and welfare gains of moving from the existing pricing structure to Ramsey are determined and examined. Sensitivity analysis indicates that the existing policy is not Ramsey optimal and that this is a fairly robust result.

Among better-educated employed workers, the fraction of full-time full-year (FTFY) workers is quite high and stable over time in the U.S. Among those with low education levels, however, this fraction is much lower and considerably more volatile. These observations suggest that the composition of unobserved skills is subject to sharp movements within low-educated employed workers, while the scale of these movements is potentially much smaller within high-educated ones. The standard college premium framework accounts for the observed shifts between education categories, but it cannot account for unobserved compositional changes within education categories. This thesis uses Heckman&#039 / s two-step estimator on repeated Current Population Survey cross sections to calculate a relative supply series that corrects for unobserved compositional shifts due to selection in and out of the FTFY status. We find that the well-documented deceleration in the growth rate of relative supply of college-equivalent workers after mid-1980s becomes even more pronounced once we correct for selectivity. This casts further doubt on the relevance of the plain skill-biased technical change hypothesis. We conclude that what happens to the within-group skill composition for low-educated groups is critical for fully understanding the trends in the relative supply of college workers in the United States.

This dissertation aims to provide evidence on the inter-relationship between per-capita income variation and worker effort indices through nutritional intakes or income to food expenditure ratio. Based on these worker effort indices, there are two data sets / 69 countries data for the year 1980, 1990 and 2000 and 17 regionalized Turkish provinces data for 1994 and 2003. One major contribution is the definition of human and physical capital interactions since accumulation of human capital (H) and physical capital (K) depends on each other within a given technology. This is called &ldquo / complementary interaction&rdquo / . Therefore, we emphasize K and H ratios are key factors in an economy rather than the absolute sizes. Another our main contribution to the literature is the data sources we employ. The 1980, 1990 and 2000 data are the first in the literature for 69 countries and more importantly, it is the first study for Turkish provincial level. While some studies are held for particular countries in terms of health proxy levels, there is no such study of any type pertaining to the Turkish economy. Our health proxies empirically play a very important role in our economic growth study. While health proxies make an important contribution in explaining income disparity approach, we do not see such effect on the convergence rate.

This study aims to investigate the direction of the relationship between financial deepening and economic growth after the completion of financial liberalization in Turkey. In order to do this, an unbalanced panel data set of 49 OECD and emerging countries for 1953-2005 period is examined with Granger causality and panel data estimation techniques. In the light of panel data analysis results, quarterly Turkish time series data for 1987-2006 period is examined by using Granger causality, cointegration and Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) procedures. Although the unbalanced panel data analysis reveals a relationship that is from financial deepening to economic growth, country specific Granger causality analysis employed with the panel data gives the opposite relationship for Turkey. Moreover, it is observed that quarterly time series data analysis mainly gives a relationship that is from economic growth to financial deepening.

This thesis investigates the nature, extent and dynamics of informal employment in the Turkish labor market using 2006-2009 Turkish Income and Living Conditions Survey. It is mainly a collection of three essays. In the first essay, an attempt is made to analyze the relevance and implications of three alternative characterizations of informality which include an enterprise-based definition associating informality with small firms, an extended enterprise-based definition incorporating social security protection, and a definition based exclusively on social security coverage. Using probit analysis, we show that social security criterion is the best measure given its ability to capture key relationships between individual characteristics and informality. In the second essay, we compute Markov transition probabilities of individuals moving across six labor market states, then estimate multinomial logit regressions to identify underlying dynamics of variant mobility patterns. Confirming traditional theory which sees formal employment as the ultimate desirable state, we find that formal-salaried individuals are the most reluctant to move and that the probability of transition from informal-salaried state to formal-salaried state is five times that of reverse transition. In the third essay, we examine formal/informal employment earnings differentials. OLS estimation of standard Mincerian equations reveals an informal penalty, half of which can be explained by observable characteristics. Moreover, applying fixed effects regressions, we show that unobserved individual fixed effects when combined with controls for observable individual and employment characteristics explain the pay differentials entirely.

Financial dollarization, defined as the substantial presence of foreign currency denominated assets and liabilities in the balance sheets of the main sectors of an economy, is a widespread phenomenon among developing economies, especially in Latin America and Turkey. Since financial dollarization often causes financial fragility and limits the effectiveness of monetary policy, the causes and consequences of it and dedollarization strategies have been placed at the forefront of policy debates especially in developing countries. The purpose of this study is to analyse the determinants of corporate sector asset and liability dollarization in ten Latin American countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela) and Turkey for the period 1990-2001. To this end, this study considers the effects of monetary policy stance (exchange rate flexibility and adoption of a de facto inflation targeting regime), institutional structure (governance) and macroeconomic stance variables (volatilities of inflation and real effective exchange rates) on financial dollarization. The results based on panel data estimations suggest that high and volatile inflation and depreciation of domestic currency induce a switch to dollar denominated assets and liabilities. Furthermore, exchange rate regime flexibility appears to reduce liability dollarization and encourage asset dollarization. Finally, the empirical analysis supports the hypothesis that adoption of inflation targeting regime and strengthening the institutional structure are significant in decreasing the level of financial dollarization.

Turkey moves towards integration with EU since 1963. The membership will involve full liberalization of trade in agricultural products with EU. The impact of liberalization depends on the path of agricultural policies in Turkey and the EU. On the other hand, agricultural protection continues to be the most controversial issue in global trade negotiations of World Trade Organization (WTO). To evaluate the impacts of policy scenarios, an economic modeling approach based on non-linear mathematical programming is appropriate. This thesis analyzes the impacts of economic integration with the EU and the potential effects of the application of a new WTO agreement in 2015 on Turkish agriculture using an agricultural sector model. The basic approach is Maximum Entropy based Positive Mathematical Programming of Heckelei and Britz (1999). The model is based on a static optimization algorithm. Following an economic integration with EU, the net export of crops declines and can not tolerate the boom in net import of livestock products. Overall welfare affect is small. Consumers benefit from declining prices. Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) supports are determinative for the welfare of producers. WTO simulation shows that a 15 percent reduction in Turkey&rsquo / s binding WTO tariff commitments will increase net meat imports by USD 250 million.

This thesis analyses the agricultural import demand of Turkey for the period 1993-2009. The main objective of the thesis is to assess the reason for the rapid increase in imports. Turkey has a trade surplus since 1993, yet, imports have surged since 2001. In this study import demand has been analyzed descriptively i.e., the developments in foreign trade have been described by the help of available, official trade statistics. Increasing population, economic growth (income) and overvalued exchange rate are among important factors that give rise to this rapid import increase. Foreign relations, such as the World Trade Organization&rsquo / s Agreement on Agriculture (1995) and Free Trade Agreement with European Union (1997), play also an important role. Future developments of EU-Turkey relations and a new WTO Agreement (Doha) may become instrumental to convert Turkey to a net importer of agricultural products. Turkey may keep its net-exporter position also in the future by increasing her agricultural output and productivity rather than relying on protectionism.

This Ph.D. thesis comprises of two parts. Part I develops a framework to provide insights into the understanding of several political macro-economy issues related to fiscal policy making. This framework links the overall macroeconomic performance to the public spending and borrowing decisions. The key feature of this framework is that it makes a distinction between productive (e.g. public investment) and non-productive public spending (e.g. popular spending). It is shown that a high level of political instability may lead to myopic and populist policies and may be associated with less favorable macroeconomic performance in terms of not only future output and inflation but also future popular spending. Part I also suggests an alternative channel for expansionary or Non-Keynesian fiscal contractions based on the productivity enhancing role of productive public spending. It is shown that if the incumbent government reduces popular (productive) spending rather than productive (popular) spending, then Non-Keynesian (Keynesian) effects are achieved. Furthermore, it is shown that the favorable effects of public investment depends positively on its quality in this framework. Moreover, the net effect of productive spending financed by borrowing on the next period&#039 / s macroeconomic performance depends on the benefits of productive spending relative to the costs of borrowing. Even under a capital borrowing rule higher public investment may yield unfavorable effects and also it may not necessarily prevent the strategic use of public investment, even though it prevents strategic debt accumulation. Part II investigates the effects of macroeconomic instability on capital accumulation and economic growth in the Turkish economy over the 1963-1999 period. Descriptive and econometric (time series) analyses suggest that macroeconomic instability not only deters capital accumulation and economic growth but it may also reverse the complementarity between public and private investment in the long-run.