Publications with Fulltext

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14288/6

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Open Access
A characterization of the extended serial correspondence
(Elsevier, 2015) Heo, Eun Jeong; Department of Economics; Yılmaz, Özgür; Faculty Member; Department of Economics; College of Administrative Sciences and Economics; 108638
We study the problem of assigning objects to a group of agents. We focus on probabilistic methods that take agents' ordinal preferences over the objects. Importantly, we allow for indifferences among objects. Katta and Sethuraman (2006) propose the extended serial correspondence to solve this problem. Our main result is a characterization of the extended serial correspondence in welfare terms by means of stochastic dominance efficiency, stochastic dominance no-envy and "limited invariance," a requirement we adapt from Heo (2014a). We also prove that an assignment matrix is selected by the extended serial correspondence if and only if it satisfies "non-wastefulness" and "ordinal fairness," which we adapt from Kesten et al.
Open Access
A comparison of game-theoretic models for parallel trade
(World Scientific Publishing, 2018) Gnecco, Giorgio; Pammolli, Fabio; Department of Economics; Alpanda, Berna Tuncay; Faculty Member; Department of Economics; College of Administrative Sciences and Economics
Within the EU Single Market for medicines, differences in drug prices, regulations, and transaction costs may create, under suitable conditions, arbitrage opportunities well before patent expiration, giving an incentive to the occurrence of parallel trade. When this is permitted, parallel traders may obtain a profit from buying drugs in a country where prices are lower, then re-selling them in a country where prices are higher. This phenomenon may came inefficiencies from a global welfare perspective, and reduce the manufacturers' incentive to invest in Research and Development (R & D). Given this framework, in this paper, we investigate the efficiency (expressed in terms of the price of anarchy) of the subgame-perfect Nash equilibria associated with five dynamic noncooperative game-theoretic models for the parallel trade of pharmaceuticals. We also compare such models with regard to the manufacturer's incentive to invest in R & D. More specifically, first we find in closed form the optimal value of the global welfare of two countries, which is obtained by solving a suitable quadratic optimization problem modeling the decision-making process of a global planner. Then, we use such a result. to evaluate and compare the prices of anarchy of five games modeling the interaction between a manufacturer in the first country and a potential parallel trader in the second country. The first three games refer, respectively, to the cases of no parallel trade threat, parallel trade threat, and parallel trade occurrence at equilibrium. Then, we investigate two modifications of the third game, in which its transfer payment from the potential parallel trader to the manufacturer is, respectively, removed/determined by Nash bargaining. For completeness, we also consider a decision-theoretic model of no parallel trade threat. For what concerns the incentive for the manufacturer to invest in R & D, the results of our numerical comparison show that the decision-theoretic model of no parallel trade threat is always the one with the highest incentive, whereas the two game-theoretic models of parallel trade threat/occurrence that do not include the transfer payment provide typically the lowest incentives. Moreover, the latter two models have the highest prices of anarchy (i.e., their equilibria have the lowest efficiencies). From a policy-making perspective, improvements are obtained if suitable countermeasures are taken to help the manufacturer recover from the costs of R & D, such as the inclusion of a transfer payment in the model.
Open Access
A kidney exchange clearinghouse in New England
(American Economic Association (AEA), 2005) Roth, Alvin E.; Ünver, M. Utku; Department of Economics; Sönmez, Tayfun; Faculty Member; Department of Economics; College of Administrative Sciences and Economics
Open Access
A practitioner’s guide to handling irregularities resulting from the 2014 revisions of the Turkish Household Labor Force Survey
(Boğaziçi Üniversitesi İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi, 2021) Poyraz, Meltem; Department of Economics; Demirci, Murat; Faculty Member; Department of Economics; College of Administrative Sciences and Economics; 272082
We document the implications of the 2014 revisions to the Turkish Household Labor Force Survey and offer guidance on how to handle the irregularities in population and unemployment statistics that resulted from two particular revisions. First, new population projections were adopted to assign survey weights. Second, a narrower definition of unemployment was adopted. We propose methods to adjust the survey weights for the pre-2014 period in order to discern changes in population statistics by age groups and regions without interruption over time and to calculate the unemployment rates according to both broader and narrower definitions since 2004. / Bu çalışmada TÜİK Hanehalkı İşgücü Anketi’ninde 2014 yılında yapılan düzenlemelerden kaynaklanan bazı sonuçları bulguluyor, nüfus ve işsizlik istatistiklerinde yapılan revizyonların özellikle ikisinden kaynaklanan sorunların nasıl ele alınması gerektiği hakkında yol gösteriyoruz. İlk revizyon, anket ağırlıklarının dayandırıldığı yeni nüfus projeksiyonlarının kabul edilmesidir. İkincisi ise, dar tanımlı bir işsizlik tanımına geçilmesidir. Bu çalışmada 2014 öncesindeki anket ağırlıklarını nüfus istatistiklerinde yaş bazında ve bölgesel olarak kopma olmayacak şekilde yeniden ayarlamak ve işsizlik oranlarını geniş ve dar tanımlı olarak 2004 yılından itibaren hesaplamak için yöntemler öneriyoruz.
Open Access
A Twitter-based economic policy uncertainty index: expert opinion and financial market dynamics in an emerging market economy
(Frontiers, 2022) Altuğ, Sumru; Department of Economics; Yeşiltaş, Sevcan; Şen, Anıl; Arslan, Beyza; Faculty Member; Department of Economics; College of Administrative Sciences and Economics; Graduate School of Social Sciences and Humanities; 258768; N/A; N/A
In this paper, we construct a Twitter-based high-frequency Economic Policy Uncertainty (TEPU) index built on a select set of Twitter user accounts whose tweets are considered to reflect expert opinion on the topic. We study the relationship between the TEPU index and a set of key financial indicators for tracking financial developments in Turkey over the sample period 2013–2021. Based on the results from a vector autoregressive analysis, we find evidence that changes in expert opinion described by fluctuations in the TEPU index interact with fluctuations in financial indicators such as the exchange rate and the stock market index to capture information about high frequency events during our sample period. Second, fluctuations in the TEPU index emerge as a key indicator that helps to predict the country risk premium measured by the CDS spread. We also find evidence that the conditional volatility of the different series reflects salient events that occurred over our sample period.
Open Access
Algeria’s manufacturing sector: few avenues to diversification
(The Lebanese Center for Policy Studies, 2017) Bustos, Sebastian; Department of Economics; Yıldırım, Muhammed Ali; Faculty Member; Department of Economics; College of Administrative Sciences and Economics; 219280
This policy report on Algeria’s industrial sector is the eighth in a series of reports aimed at identifying strategic options Arab countries have in undertaking structural transformation. Using the product space methodology, this report analyzes existing capabilities of selected economies by identifying products they currently export and determining which path they should follow to produce more sophisticated and strategic products. Algeria’s position in the product space suggests that the country’s future path for development should focus on new opportunities in the chemical and food clusters. Redeploying productive knowledge that already exists within the country into other more complex products would prove difficult but the current position implies that, unaided, the economy is unlikely to diversify. This suggests the need to adopt proactive industrial policies entailing a number of new industries or products at which to target public inputs.
Open Access
Ambiguous business cycles: a quantitative assessment
(Elsevier, 2020) Altuğ, Sumru; Collard, Fabrice; Mukerji, Sujoy; Department of Economics; Çakmaklı, Cem; Özsöylev, Han Nazmi; Faculty Member; Department of Economics; College of Administrative Sciences and Economics; 107818; N/A
In this paper, we examine the cyclical dynamics of a Real Business Cycle model with ambiguity averse consumers and investment irreversibility using the smooth ambiguity model of Klibanoff et al. (2005, 2009). Ambiguity of belief about the productivity process arises as agents do not know the process driving variation in aggregate TFP, and they must make inferences regarding the true process at the same time as they infer the behavior of the unobserved temporary component using a Kalman filtering algorithm. Our findings may be summarized as follows. First, the standard business cycle facts hold in our framework, which are not altered significantly by changes in the degree of ambiguity aversion. Second, we demonstrate a role for information and learning effects, and show that lower initial ambiguity or greater confidence coupled with learning dynamics lowers the volatility and increases the persistence in all of the key macroeconomic variables. Third, comparing the performance of our model to the New Keynesian business cycle model of Ilut and Schneider (2014) with maxmin expected utility, we find that the version of their model without nominal and real frictions turns out to have limited success at matching the moments for the quantity variables. In the maxmin expected utility framework, the worst case scenario instills too much caution on the part of agents who, in the absence of a key set of nominal and real frictions, end up excessively reducing their responses to TFP shocks.
Open Access
Arab country product space report introduction and methodology
(The Lebanese Center for Policy Studies, 2017) Bustos, Sebastian; Department of Economics; Yıldırım, Muhammed Ali; Faculty Member; Department of Economics; College of Administrative Sciences and Economics; 219280
During the decades prior to the Arab spring, Arab countries on average had one of the lowest per capita growth rates compared to other parts of the world. Although countries in the region registered higher growth rates at the beginning of the century, this economic growth did not bring about a structural transformation required to diversify Arab economies. The challenge remains not only in how to ensure these economies grow but also to ensure that growth is inclusive and sustainable. The general objective of the report is to lay out the strategic options Arab countries have in undertaking structural transformation. Using the product space methodology, the existing capabilities of selected economies are analyzed by locating products they currently export, which assists in determining which path they should follow to produce more sophisticated and strategic products.
Open Access
Bank volatility connectedness in South East Asia
(2018) Department of Economics; Yılmaz, Kamil; Faculty Member; Department of Economics; College of Administrative Sciences and Economics; 6111
This paper presents an analysis of the volatility connectedness of major bank stocks in the South East Asia (SEACEN) region between 2004 and 2016. Applying the Diebold-Yilmaz Connectedness Index (DYCI) framework to daily stock return volatilities of major banks in the region, we obtain results that help us uncover valuable information on the region's static and dynamic bank volatility network. The volatility connectedness increased substantially during the US financial crisis (from 2007 to 2009) and during the European sovereign debt and banking crisis in 2011. The recent increase in the total connectedness has resulted from temporary financial shocks on a global scale. Once included in the analysis, the global systemically important banks (GSIBs) from the U.S. and Europe generate substantial volatility connectedness to SEACEN banks. We also identify country clusters in the banking volatility network. Major Indian, Taiwanese and Chinese banks generate volatility connectedness to their counterparts in other countries of the region. Finally, we show that the region's bank volatility network becomes tighter during systemic events; banks from different countries in the region generate volatility connectedness to the others.
Open Access
Building social cohesion in ethnically mixed schools: an intervention on perspective taking
(Oxford University Press (OUP), 2021) Alan, Şule; Baysan, Ceren; Kubilay, Elif; Department of Economics; Gümren, Mert; Researcher; Department of Economics; Graduate School of Social Sciences and Humanities
We evaluate the effect of an educational program that aims to build social cohesion in ethnically mixed schools by developing perspective-taking ability in children. The program is implemented in Turkish elementary schools affected by a large influx of Syrian refugee children. We measure a comprehensive set of outcomes that characterize a cohesive school environment, including peer violence incidents, the prevalence of interethnic social ties, and prosocial behavior. Using randomized variation in program implementation, we find that the program significantly lowers peer violence and victimization on school grounds. The program also reduces the likelihood of social exclusion and increases interethnic social ties in the classroom. We find that the program significantly improves prosocial behavior, measured by incentivized tasks: treated students exhibit significantly higher trust, reciprocity, and altruism toward each other as well as toward anonymous out-school peers. We show that this enhanced prosociality is welfare improving from the ex post payoff perspective. We investigate multiple channels that could explain the results, including ethnic bias, impulsivity, empathetic concern, emotional intelligence, behavioral norms, and perspective taking. Children's increased effort to take others' perspectives emerges as the most robust mechanism to explain our results.
Open Access
Choice, consideration sets, and attribute filters
(American Economic Association (AEA), 2018) Department of Economics; Kimya, Mert; Faculty Member; Department of Economics; College of Administrative Sciences and Economics
It is well known that decision makers do not always consider all of the available alternatives when making a choice. When the alternatives have attributes, these attributes provide a natural way to form the consideration set. I assume a procedure in which the decision maker uses the relative ranking of the alternatives on each attribute to reduce the size of the choice set. I provide a characterization of the procedure and illustrate how to identify the underlying preference and consideration set. The model explains certain choice anomalies such as the attraction and the compromise effects.
Open Access
Commercial research at universities and career choices of science and engineering doctoral students
(Economics Bulletin, 2014) Ecer, Sencer; Huang, Youxin; Department of Economics; Sarpça, Sinan; Faculty Member; Department of Economics; College of Administrative Sciences and Economics; 52406
Introduction: Herbal medicines are used for different purposes by applying them directly to the skin. Case Report: A 57-year-old female patient presented with erythema and swelling of the left knee. On examination, erythematous and bullous lesions were observed. In the story of 'Ranunculus Scleratus' plants 12 hours knee closed contact of the learned. Diagnosis; Fitokontakt thought of as Dermatitis patients to wet dressing is recommended. 1 month after hyperemia outside of a clinical finding out. Conclusion: Treatment with plants in our community are used as often as incorrect use can lead to harmful effects.
Open Access
Correlates of turnover: salary and bonuses
(2022) Department of Economics; Ekinci, Emre; Faculty Member; Department of Economics; College of Administrative Sciences and Economics; 309364
Purpose: this paper investigates how salaries and bonus payments are related to turnover. Design/methodology/approach: the wealth maximization hypothesis posits that turnover is negatively related to the worker’s expected future earnings at the current firm. Thus, salary and bonuses should be related to turnover to the extent they provide information about the worker’s future earnings at the firm. To evaluate this hypothesis, this paper uses data coming from the personnel records of a medium-sized US firm in the financial services industry. Results: the regression results show that pay variables are serially correlated and they signal future promotions in the firm. Thus, both salaries and bonuses provide information about the worker’s future earnings through these two channels. Further, as predicted by the wealth maximization hypothesis, both salaries and bonuses are related to turnover. In particular, the results show that the growth rate of salary and bonus size (as well as earning a bonus in the current year) are negatively related to turnover.Discussion: the findings of this study underscore the importance of pay variables on turnover behavior. While most existing studies focus on salaries, thereby ignoring bonuses, the current analysis shows that bonus payments are an important determinant of turnover. Hence, in addition to providing workers with effort incentives, the retention function of bonuses should be taken into account for designing optimal compensation schemes.
Open Access
Determinants of delegation: evidence from British establishment data
(Boğaziçi Üniversitesi İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi, 2021) Theodoropoulos, Nikolaos; Department of Economics; Ekinci, Emre; Faculty Member; Department of Economics; College of Administrative Sciences and Economics; 309364
This paper provides an empirical analysis of firms’ delegation decisions by using a matched employer-employee dataset from Britain. In our analysis, we first investigate if firm-provided training is positively related to delegating authority, as predicted by the existing theories. We then consider variables that can potentially increase the value of delegation. In particular, we conjecture that firms become more likely to delegate authority as they face higher uncertainty or as the employees acquire more precise information. To test these hypotheses, we use market conditions to measure uncertainty and correlates of worker productivity to measure the precision of the employee’s information. / Bu çalışma, Britanya’da oluşturulan eşlenmiş işveren-çalışan veri setini kullanarak, firmaların yetkilendirme (delegasyon) kararlarının ampirik bir analizini sunmaktadır. Analizimizde ilk olarak, mevcut teorilerin öngördüğü üzere firma tarafından sağlanan eğitim ile yetkilendirme kararları arasında pozitif bir ilişkili olup olmadığını araştırıyoruz. Daha sonra, yetkilendirmenin değerini potansiyel olarak artırabilecek değişkenleri ele alıyoruz. Özellikle, daha yüksek belirsizlikle karşılaştıklarında veya çalışanların daha kesin bilgiler edinmelerinin mümkün olduğu ortamlarda firmaların yetkilendirme olasılıklarının arttığı hipotezini test ediyoruz. Bu analizde, belirsizliği ölçmek için piyasa koşullarını kullanırken, çalışanın edinebileceği bilgilerinin kesinliğini ölçmek için ise işçi üretkenliğini etkileyen değişkenleri kullanmaktayız.
Open Access
Dual-donor organ exchange
(Wiley, 2017) Ergin, Haluk; Department of Economics; Sönmez, Tayfun; Ünver, Utku; Faculty Member; Faculty Member; Department of Economics; College Of Administrative Sciences And Economics
Owing to the worldwide shortage of deceased‐donor organs for transplantation, living donations have become a significant source of transplant organs. However, not all willing donors can donate to their intended recipients because of medical incompatibilities. These incompatibilities can be overcome by an exchange of donors between patients. For kidneys, such exchanges have become widespread in the last decade with the introduction of optimization and market design techniques to kidney exchange. A small but growing number of liver exchanges have also been conducted. Over the last two decades, a number of transplantation procedures emerged where organs from two living donors are transplanted to a single patient. Prominent examples include dual‐graft liver transplantation, lobar lung transplantation, and simultaneous liver‐kidney transplantation. Exchange, however, has been neither practiced nor introduced in this context. We introduce dual‐donor organ exchange as a novel transplantation modality, and through simulations show that living‐donor transplants can be significantly increased through such exchanges. We also provide a simple theoretical model for dual‐donor organ exchange and introduce optimal exchange mechanisms under various logistical constraints.
Open Access
Edgeworth expansion based correction of selectivity bias in models of double selection
(2012) Yavuzoğlu, Berk; Department of Economics; Tunalı, Fehmi İnsan; Faculty Member; Department of Economics; College of Administrative Sciences and Economics; 105635
Edgeworth expansions are known to be useful for approximating probability distributions and moments. In our case, we exploit the expansion in the context of models of double selection embedded in a trivariate normal structure. We assume bivariate normality among the random disturbance terms in the two selection equations but allow the distribution of the disturbance term in the outcome equation to be free. This sets the stage for a control function approach to correction of selectivity bias that affords tests for the more common trivariate normality specifi-cation. Other recently proposed methods for handling multiple outcomes are Multinomial Logit based selection correction models. An empirical example is presented to document the differ-ences among the results obtained from our selectivity correction approach, trivariate normality specification and Multinomial Logit based selection correction models.
Open Access
Egypt’s manufacturing sector: seizing on an advantageous product space position
(The Lebanese Center for Policy Studies, 2017) Bustos, Sebastian; Department of Economics; Yıldırım, Muhammed Ali; Faculty Member; Department of Economics; College of Administrative Sciences and Economics; 219280
This policy report on Egypt’s industrial sector is the third in a series of reports aimed at identifying strategic options Arab countries have in undertaking structural transformation. Using the product space methodology, this report analyzes existing capabilities of selected economies by identifying products they currently export and determining which path they should follow to produce more sophisticated and strategic products. A study of Egypt’s product space reveals the country should develop the machinery and chemicals & allied industry since they would increase the country’s product complexity index. To meet this specific goal and to enhance production in other sectors, Egypt should focus on providing support and public inputs—such as infrastructure and regulation—to existing industries with the aim of improving their productivity and ability to jump to nearby opportunities.
Open Access
Estimation of panel data regression models with two-sided censoring or truncation
(De Gruyter Open, 2021) Honoré, B. E.; Hu, L.; Leth-Petersen, S.; Department of Economics; Alan, Şule; Faculty Member; Department of Economics; College of Administrative Sciences and Economics
This paper constructs estimators for panel data regression models with individual specific heterogeneity and two-sided censoring and truncation. Following Powell the estimation strategy is based on moment conditions constructed from re-censored or re-truncated residuals. While these moment conditions do not identify the parameter of interest, they can be used to motivate objective functions that do. We apply one of the estimators to study the effect of a Danish tax reform on household portfolio choice. The idea behind the estimators can also be used in a cross sectional setting.
Open Access
Ever failed, try again, succeed better: results from a randomized educational intervention on grit
(Oxford University Press (OUP), 2019) Alan, Şule; Boneva, Teodora; Department of Economics; Ertaç, Seda; Faculty Member; Department of Economics; College of Administrative Sciences and Economics; 107102
We show that grit, a skill that has been shown to be highly predictive of achievement, is malleable in childhood and can be fostered in the classroom environment. We evaluate a randomized educational intervention implemented in two independent elementary school samples. Outcomes are measured via a novel incentivized real-effort task and performance in standardized tests. We find that treated students are more likely to exert effort to accumulate task-specific ability and hence more likely to succeed. In a follow up 2.5 years after the intervention, we estimate an effect of about 0.2 standard deviations on a standardized math test.
Open Access
Exploring the nexus between inflation and globalization under inflation targeting through the lens of New Zealand's experience
(2017) Martínez-García, Enrique; Soytaş, Mehmet Ali; Department of Economics; Kabukçuoğlu, Ayşe; Faculty Member; Department of Economics; College of Administrative Sciences and Economics
We investigate empirically the inflation dynamics in New Zealand, a small open economy and a pioneer in inflation targeting, under various open-economy Phillips curve specifications. Our forecasting exercise suggests that open-economy Phillips curves under standard measures of global slack do not help forecast domestic inflation, possibly indicating measurement problems with global slack itself. In turn, under a stable inflation target we still find that (i) global inflation and (ii) global inflation and oil prices have information content for headline CPI and core CPI inflation over the 1997:Q3-2015:Q1 period and appear to be reliable proxies for global slack in forecasting inflation.