Technical Change and Efficiency in Turkish Manufacturing Industries

Technical progress and production efficiency are central to economic growth and international competitiveness. However, these topics received little attention in Less Developed Countries. This study is the first attempt to measure and to understand the extent and importance of technical progress and efficiency in Turkish manufacturing industries. Stochastic production frontiers for Turkish textile, cement, and motor vehicles industries are estimated by using panel data of plants for the years 1987 to 1992. The rate and direction of technical change for each industry are estimated by introducing time-dependent variables in the production function. Sector-specific factors which influence technical efficiency of manufacturing plants are also identified.     

Technological progress and scientific indicators: a panel data analysis

Total factor productivity (TFP) is generally interpreted to be a proxy for technological advancement. In this paper, we use stochastic frontier analysis to decompose the growth in TFP into three components: technological progress, scale effect and change in technical efficiency. Then, we conduct a comprehensive panel data analysis using the technological progress component of the TFP growth and several scientific and technological indicators using data from 160 countries over the period from 1960 to 2009. Our results generally show that the technological progress component of the TFP growth properly reflects certain dimensions of actual scientific and technological progress. However, we also find that this result is somewhat sensitive to different econometric specifications and assumptions.     

Who Benefits from Training and R&D,the Firm or the Workers?

The present paper offers a novel study of the effects of intangible assets on wages and productivity. Training, R&D and physical capital are all taken into account, and their joint effects are examined. We use panels of firms in order to control for unobserved fixed effects and the potential endogeneity of training and R&D, using data for France and Sweden. The estimation of productivity and wage equations allows us to show how the benefits of investment in physical capital, training and R&D are shared between the firm and the workers. We found that firms indeed obtain the largest part of the returns to their investments, but their share is relatively lower for intangible assets (R&D and training) than for physical capital.     

Globalised management and local labour: the case of the white‐goods industry in Turkey

This paper is concerned with the situation where goods are produced by workers in underdeveloped countries, in this case, consumer durables, under the direction of managements which have access to modern management techniques. In particular, it considers the significance of new management methods, especially Total Quality Management, for workers employed in white‐goods manufacture in Turkey.     

THE ELASTICITY OF CAPITAL–LAND SUBSTITUTION IN THE HOUSING CONSTRUCTION SECTOR OF A RAPIDLY URBANIZED CITY: EVIDENCE FROM TURKEY

This paper estimates the elasticity of capital-land substitution for the housing market in Ankara, the capital city of Turkey. Using constant elasticity of substitution (CES) and variable elasticity of substitution (VES) production functions and cross-section data, the paper provides new information to compare the housing supply elasticity of Ankara with that of the USA and the UK cases. Our regression results reveal that housing supply in Ankara is highly inelastic due to the uniform construction regime of local authorities. Moreover, we find that there is a considerable spatial differentiation of urban land density measures within the capital city. Because of the incomplete urbanization process, the elasticity of capital-land substitution is significantly higher in the outer parts of the city.     

Vision 2023: Turkey's national Technology Foresight Program: A contextualist analysis and discussion

Likewise many other developed and developing countries, a national Technology Foresight Program was carried out in Turkey under the name of Vision 2023. This paper analyzes and discusses the Vision 2023 Technology Foresight Program from a contextualist perspective. The contextualist perspective suggests relationships between the context, content and process of change; and thus proposes that any change activity should be designed, organized and implemented by considering these relationships. This viewpoint is seen as a necessary condition for the achievement of change in organizations and society. In this respect, the Vision 2023 Program is considered in its own national and organizational contexts by discussing (i) how the factors in these contexts affected particular decisions taken on the content and approaches adopted in the process and (ii) how problems emerged when these relationships were dismissed. Through the analysis, the paper suggests that a Foresight program should be organized, designed and practised by considering the effects of the external contexts (e.g. national, regional and/or corporate contexts) and structural and behavioral factors stemming from these different context levels along with the nature of the issue being worked on, which constitute the content of the exercise.     

Local House Price Effects of Internal Migration in Queensland: Australia's Interstate Migration Capital

We examine the causal impact of internal migration on housing prices across 82 Statistical Areas Level 3 regions in Queensland, Australia from 2014–2019. The primary findings are: (i) an annual increase in the inflow of migrants equal to 1 per cent of a region's initial population leads to a 0.6 to 0.7 per cent annual increase in Queensland's house prices across different empirical specifications; (ii) this effect differs between the Greater Brisbane metropolitan area and Rest of State areas; (iii) migration from New South Wales fails to produce a significant influence on house price growth in Queensland.