Prediction of bank financial strength ratings: The case of Turkey

Bank financial strength ratings have gained widespread popularity especially after the recent financial turmoil. Rating agencies were criticized because of their ratings and failure to predict the bankruptcy of the banks. Based on this observation, we investigate whether the forecast of the rating of bank's financial strength using publicly available data is consistent with those of the credit rating agency. We use the data of Turkish banks for this investigation. We take a country-specific approach because previous studies found that proxies used for environmental factors (political, economic, and financial risk of the country) did not have any explanatory power and it is hard to find international data for other important factors such as franchise value, concentration, and efficiency. We use two popular multivariate statistical techniques (multiple discriminant analysis and ordered logistic regression) to estimate a suitable model and we compare their performances with those of two mostly used data mining techniques (Support Vector Machine and Artificial Neural Network). Our results suggest that our predictions are consistent with those of Moody's financial strength rating in general.. The important factors in rating are found to be profitability (measured by return on equity), efficient use of resources, and funding the businesses and the households instead of the government that shows efficient placement of the funds.     

Accelerate Financial Transformation to Serve MSEs

At the 2011 National Financial Work Conference,it was clearly pointed out that f inance should continue to serve the real economy and that capital should be ensured to be inputted into the real economy in a bid to effectively solve the problems that it was difficult and expensive to finance     

“Modeling the impact of wars and terrorism on tourism demand in Kurdistan region of Iraq”

Portuguese Economic Journal - Recent political instabilities in the Middle East have led to strong negative impacts on the tourism sector. The aim of this study is to investigate the extent and the...     

Asymmetric government expenditure: a comparison of advanced and developing countries

This paper studies the responsiveness of government expenditures to business cycles and introduces an index of asymmetric government expenditures using panel data for advanced and developing countries during the period 1981–2014. The empirical findings show that government expenditures tend to be procyclical in developing countries but acyclical in advanced economies. In addition, it is found that government expenditures respond in a countercyclical manner during bad times in advanced countries, but in a strongly procyclical manner during good times in developing countries. The index of asymmetric government expenditures for developing countries tends to be higher than that of the advanced countries.     

Volatility Spillover Effects in Interregional Equity Markets: Empirical Evidence from Brazil and Turkey

We investigate volatility spillovers between two stock markets: Turkey and Brazil. Using a misspecification-robust causality-in-variance test, we find evidence supporting volatility spillovers from the São Paulo Stock Exchange to the Istanbul Stock Exchange. Moreover, the results imply that financial crises may change the nature of volatility spillovers between the two markets by adding an additional channel of volatility transmission from Turkey to Brazil.     

Long-term dynamics of the VIX index and its tradable counterpart VXX

We study the relationship of the VIX index and the exchange-traded note VXX on various timescales. We find that changes of VIX and VXX are correlated only contemporaneously on timescales of days, but VIX leads VXX on timescales of months. Next, we construct a simple joint model for VXX and VIX which replicates all the key characteristics of these two time series, but in which VIX and VXX are related only via a correlated error term. Therefore, VIX cannot be used as a predictor of VXX and there is no apparent trading profit opportunity.     

Nonlinearity and structural stability in the Phillips curve: Evidence from Turkey

In this paper, we investigate possible nonlinearities in the inflation–output relationship in Turkey for the 1980–2008 period. We first estimate a linear bivariate model for the inflation rate and output gap, and test for linearity of the estimated model against nonlinear alternatives. Linearity test results suggest that the relationship between the inflation rate and output gap is highly nonlinear. We estimate a bivariate time-varying smooth transition regression model, and compute dynamic effects of one variable on the other by generalized impulse response functions. Computed impulse response functions indicate that inflation–output relationship in Turkey during the analyzed period was regime dependent and varied considerably across time.     

Estimating the recreational value of Pakistan's largest freshwater lake to support sustainable tourism management using a travel cost model

Keenjhar Lake, Pakistan's largest freshwater lake and an important Ramsar site, provides habitat for internationally important water birds. Annually, 385,000 people visit the lake. The lake is threatened by a variety of causes, including industrial and agricultural pollution. To support its sustainable management and conservation, the lake's recreational value is estimated using an individual travel cost model. Randomly selected visitors are interviewed during peak season about their recreational travel behavior and perception of lake conditions. Key issues in travel cost modeling are addressed, including the opportunity cost of time, group travel, substitution and income effects, and endogenous stratification and truncation due to on-site sampling. Poisson and negative binomial regression models produce similar results. We find significant over-dispersion, and therefore, use the more conservative truncated negative binomial model results to estimate consumer surplus. The value of this assessment method for resource managers is illustrated by comparing the consumer surplus with existing pricing and budgeting mechanisms. The annual flow of benefits from lake recreation appears to be almost 50 times higher than the average entrance fee paid by the predominantly higher-income segments visiting the lake, suggesting scope for increasing fees and reallocating government budgets to finance the necessary lake protection measures.     

Determinants of private savings behaviour in Turkey

This study investigates the effects on private saving rates of a number of policy and non-policy variables. The analysis covers the period 1968–1994. The empirical private saving model for Turkey is estimated. The findings support the hypothesis that private saving rates have strong inertia. The evidence indicates that government saving does not tend to crowd out private savings and the Ricardian equivalence does not hold strictly. Income level has a positive impact on private saving rate, and growth rate of income is not statistically significant. From a policy point of view, financial depth and development measures in Turkey suggest that countries with deeper financial systems tend to have higher private saving rates. Private credit and real interest rates try to capture the severity of the borrowing constraints and the degree of financial repression for Turkey. Moreover, the negative impact of life expectancy rate lends support to the life-cycle hypothesis. The precautionary motive for saving is supported by the findings that inflation captures the degree of macroeconomic volatility and has a positive impact on private saving in Turkey.