Income comparison,collectivism and life satisfaction in Turkey

The current research examines the impact of income comparisons on life satisfaction in Turkey which has a feature of “collectivism” or “low individualism”. This is done by analyzing the results of the “Life Satisfaction Survey” applied by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK) for 2011. Using ordered logit estimations, this paper reveals that most of the income comparison, interaction variables and socio-economic variables have a significant explanatory power on life satisfaction levels in Turkey. The main emphasis of the paper is that reference group’s self-reported life satisfaction is related to income comparisons, along with other socioeconomic factors. The impact of comparisons is asymmetric, in that in most cases, under-performing one’s benchmark had a greater effect than out-performing it.     

Randomized quasi-Monte Carlo methods in pricing securities

Today quasi-Monte Carlo methods are used successfully in computational finance and economics as an alternative to the Monte Carlo method. One drawback of these methods, however, is the lack of a practical way of error estimation. To address this issue several researchers introduced the so-called randomized quasi-Monte Carlo methods in the last decade. In this paper we will present a survey of randomized quasi-Monte Carlo methods, and compare their efficiencies with the efficiency of the Monte Carlo method in pricing certain securities. We will also investigate the effects of Box–Muller and inverse transformation techniques when they are applied to low-discrepancy sequences.     

The effects of the military in politics on the inbound tourism: evidence from Turkey

In this paper, we analyze the effects of the military in politics on the number of tourist inflows from 71 countries to Turkey for the period from 1984 to 2014. We use the fixed-effects and the random-effects as well as the dynamic generalized methods of moments estimations. We find that a lower level of the relative military in politics (the difference between the source country and Turkey) positively affects the tourism inflows to Turkey. Specifically, one standard deviation reduction in the index of the relative military intervention in politics in Turkey leads to almost 7% increase in the tourism inflows.     

Globalisation,inequality and redistribution: Theory and evidence

This paper constructs a simple theoretical model to study the implications of globalisation for inequality and redistribution. It shows that when globalisation increases inequality, a policymaker interested in maximising the sum of welfares of all agents increases redistribution. Empirically, the paper examines the effects of globalisation on inequality and redistribution in a panel data set of 140 countries for the period from 1970 to 2012. It finds that both inequality and redistribution have been increasing with globalisation. The results are robust to the inclusion of many different controls and the exclusion of outliers.     

Estimating sensitivities of temperature-based weather derivatives

Pricing of temperature-based weather derivatives has been studied in the literature; however, there is no analysis of the estimation of the sensitivities of weather derivatives in a stochastic model of temperatures. We use pathwise derivative and kernel methods to derive Monte Carlo estimators for the sensitivity (Greeks) of temperature-based weather derivatives. These sensitivities can be used by investors for choosing the most suitable weather contracts for partial hedging or speculation. Temperature data from New York, Atlanta and Chicago are used in the discussion of numerical results.     

The impact of trade openness on the unemployment rate in G7 countries

Recent and ongoing literature strongly implies the existence of a significant and robust impact of trade openness (liberalisation) and globalisation on unemployment, particularly in developed economies. This paper empirically investigates the impacts of four different measures of trade openness and globalisation on the unemployment rate in an unbalanced panel framework. The analysis focuses on the G7 countries: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (US). Robust empirical findings from panel data estimates demonstrate that, along with macroeconomic indicators and market size, all the measures of trade openness and globalisation are significantly and negatively associated with the unemployment rate. Therefore, we conclude that the continuation of the globalisation process instead of protectionism is of great importance in reducing the unemployment rate in developed economies.     

Effects of the agricultural commodity and the food price volatility on economic integration: an empirical assessment

This paper empirically examines the effects of the global agricultural commodity price volatility and the food price volatility on the level of economic in     

The Impact of Globalization on the Structural Unemployment: An Empirical Reappraisal

This paper analyzes the direct effects of various measures of globalization on the structural unemployment in 87 countries for the period from 1991 to 2014. The model specifications are based on the Ricardian Comparative Advantage and the Heckscher–Ohlin models. It is found that one standard deviation increase in the trade openness approximately leads to 0.6 percentage point lower structural unemployment rate. The effects of economic, social, and political aspects of globalization on the structural unemployment are also negative, but they are found as statistically insignificant. The paper also implements various robustness checks and argues potential implications.     

Convergence clustering in the Chinese provinces: New evidence from several macroeconomic indicators

In this paper, the convergence clustering in 31 Chinese provinces regarding several important economic indicators over the period 1952 to 2016 was empirically investigated. Several provincial clusters were identified in the per capita (real) gross domestic product (GDP), consumption–income ratio, retail price, and consumer price inflation rates, using a club convergence and clustering procedure. The empirical findings are as follows. First, it was found that all series of the original data contain a significant nonlinear component. Second, it was observed that there are five significant clusters for the per capita income in China. Third, it was found that there are four significant clusters for the consumption–income ratio. Fourth, it was observed that there are four significant clusters for the retail inflation rates and two significant clusters for the consumer inflation rates in China. These results will enable local and central planners to implement economic growth, savings and price adjustment policies for different groups of provinces.