A Test for a Functioning Market Economy: Seton'S Eigenprices of Turkey

We use Seton's eigenprices to see if some evidence can be found in support of the European Commission's official statement that the Turkish economy can be considered as a functioning market economy. Given an input–output flows matrix, there is a unique set of prices for outputs and production factors compatible with final demand, generating demand for factors. The findings based on Turkey's most recent I–O table and comparable I–O matrices for Romania and Poland (two EU members) in 2005 show that price distortions were on average five times larger in Turkey. Hence, based on price distortions alone, there was no solid evidence in support of the statement that Turkey had a functioning market economy.     

Optimal supervision intensity, collusion, and the organization of work

Abstract.  The intensity of supervision, defined as the proportion of supervisors to bottom-rank productive workers, differs widely across organizations and nations. Analysing three monitoring systems that differ in their supervision intensity, I show that the possibility of collective shirking arrangements can impose a system-dependent limit on the range of implementable performances. This brings about a tradeoff in the choice of the monitoring system: the system that economizes on incentive costs may implement an inferior range of performances. Applications of the model generate work-disutility-, ethics- and job-characteristics-based explanations for variations in the intensity of supervision.     

Factors Influencing Brand Launch in a Global Marketplace

The purpose of this study is to explore the factors that influence the launch of brands into new markets in a global environment. Although multiple streams of literature exist with respect to the entry of brands into new markets and the diffusion of new brands within and across markets, the process of launching products and brands globally over time has received relatively limited attention. To address this issue, this study incorporates multiple indicators of activities that can contribute to experiential learning relevant for launching brands in a global marketplace. Market uncertainty and experiential learning provide a conceptual foundation for the development of relevant hypotheses, which are tested in the context of the global automotive industry from 1981 to 2004. A discrete time event history analysis with time‐varying independent variables is employed to estimate the effects of the independent variables on the probability of a brand being launched in a specific market. The global brand launch observations are extracted from a proprietary dataset containing the global dispersion of automotive brands including 22 countries of origin and 42 countries of brand entry. The sample yields 50,572 spells, derived from 99 companies, 173 brands, and 700 market entries. The results of this study contribute to the literature in a variety of ways. Market attractiveness positively influences the propensity of a brand to be launched into a new market. This supports the idea that potential demand conditions are an important managerial consideration in product introduction decisions. The results reveal significant effects with respect to the role of psychic distance and experiential learning. Brands are reluctant to launch into countries that are culturally and economically less similar to the home market. Yet firms tend to place a lower degree of emphasis on factors of cultural distance when launching brands into larger markets, and global experience enables companies to overcome the uncertainties associated with launching brands into international markets that are economically distant. The results also suggest that companies are more likely to introduce additional brands in markets where they already have a presence. Overall, global dispersion and geographic scope, coupled with local market knowledge facilitate the launch of brands globally. From a managerial perspective, this study suggests companies should focus on acquiring both local and global experience to facilitate the launch of products and brands in the global marketplace.     

Using strategic philanthropy to improve heritage tourist sites on the Gallipoli Peninsula,Turkey: community perceptions of changing quality of life and of the sponsoring organization

This paper examines the “Respect for History” project on Turkey's Gallipoli Peninsula sponsored by a Turkish oil company, OPET. The project sought to enhance and protect the cultural and historical experiences of tourists visiting Gallipoli, and to bring direct and indirect benefits to local communities through enhancing tourism-related business opportunities and improving community infrastructure. This research investigates the project's impact on residents’ perceived social and economic wellbeing, using a quality of life framework, and also ascertains residents’ views of the sponsoring firm. The context illustrates key differences between pure philanthropy and strategic philanthropy; the latter defined as doing good by purposefully achieving corporate and civic benefits. The role of strategic philanthropy as a sustainable tourism development tool, and its impact on tourism governance, are considered. Data were collected from 674 residents on the Turkish Gallipoli Peninsula in areas impacted by OPET's investment program. The results, using structural equation modelling (SEM), identify that respondents generally believe that both their economic and social quality of life have improved. This, in turn, has positively influenced respondents’ views of the sponsoring organization. The concept of strategic philanthropy appears valuable as a private sector, non-tourism, sustainable tourism development tool in some circumstances.     

Foreign Equity Trading and Average Stock‐return Volatility

We examine whether there is a relationship between foreign equity trading and average total volatility, measured as the value‐weighted average of stock‐return variance in the Istanbul Stock Exchange. We employ foreign equity purchase and sale data to track changes in foreign equity trading, which not only enable us to capture effective foreign investor participation but also to observe the potential asymmetric effects of incoming and outgoing funds on the average total volatility. Consistent with the implications of the asymmetric information hypothesis, we find that net equity flow is positively associated with average total volatility. Furthermore, we show that net equity flow affects the average total volatility through the local and idiosyncratic volatilities, suggesting that foreign investors engage in the production of firm specific and market wide information.     

Housing and the Great Depression

This article considers the structural stability of the relationship between the real housing price and real GDP per capita for an annual sample that includes the Great Depression. We test for structural change in parameter values using a sample of annual US data from 1890 to 1952. The article examines the long-run and short-run dynamic relationships between the real housing price and real GDP per capita to determine whether these relationships experienced structural change over the sample period. We find that temporal Granger causality exists between these two variables only for subsamples that include the Great Depression. For the other subsample periods as well as for the entire sample period, no relationship exists between these variables.     

The Exchange Rate and the Trade Balances of Turkish Agriculture,Manufacturing and Mining

This paper investigates and compares the response to the exchange rate changes of trade balances of three Turkish sectors; agriculture, manufacturing and mining. The impact on trade balance of exchange rate changes is examined using the trade balance model employed in Bahmani-Oskooee [1985, Review of Economics and Statistics 67: 500]. Analysis is conducted based on the quarterly data from 1986: I to 1998: III. It is observed that in response to domestic currency depreciation trade balance of each of all three sectors first improves, then deteriorates and then improves again. Despite exhibiting similar pattern of reaction to the exchange rate change in the short run, long-run or overall response of trade balance differs across the sectors; while trade balances of both manufacturing and mining improve in the long run, agricultural trade balance worsens as a result of domestic-currency depreciation.     

CUE with many weak instruments and nearly singular design

This paper analyzes many weak moment asymptotics under the possibility of similar moments. The possibility of highly related moments arises when there are many of them. Knight and Fu (2000) designate the issue of similar regressors as the “nearly singular” design in the least squares case. In the nearly singular design, the sample variance converges to a singular limit term. However, Knight and Fu (2000) assume that on the nullspace of the limit term, the difference between the sample variance and the singular matrix converges in probability to a positive definite matrix when multiplied by an appropriate rate. We consider specifically Continuous Updating Estimator (CUE) with many weak moments under nearly singular design. We show that the nearly singular design affects the form of the limit of the many weak moment asymptotics that is introduced by Newey and Windmeijer (2009a). However, the estimator is still consistent and the Wald test has the standard χ²${\chi }^2$ limit.     

Understanding Why Women Work in Five-Star Hotels in a Developing Country and Their Work-Related Problems

This study investigated why women work in five-star hotels in a developing country and what type of problems they face when working in these organizations. The empirical data was collected via a survey from 571 women working in five-star hotels in Turkey. Having formal training and education in tourism, high interest in the industry, and enjoyment of working in tourism were the most important reasons for the participants to work in tourism organizations. The study findings further reveal that lack of sufficient time for friends and relatives, low wages and the difficulty of getting a promotion were the main job-related problems for women working in five-star hotels in Turkey. The research findings provide partial support for previous studies but also provide additional insights into this relatively under researched area.