How large are fiscal multipliers in Turkey?

Using the augmented version of the Blanchard - Perotti’s SVAR technique, this paper seeks to empirically estimate the size of fiscal multipliers in Turkey over the period 2002:q3-2016:q2. In contrast to many previous papers that concentrate on fiscal policy instruments -taxes and government spending- at the aggregate level, in the paper we consider these instruments at the sub-component level. We examine output responses to discretionary changes in five fiscal variables (value-added tax, special consumption tax, personal income tax, real government spending, and transfer payments), and then we estimate the size of fiscal multipliers for taxes and government spending. Overall, our empirical findings indicate that the size of multipliers for taxes is different from that of government spending. Depending on the sub-components, the size of the multiplier ranges from -0.83 to -0.27 for taxes, and from 0.02 to 0.98 for government spending respectively. Overall, these findings corroborate the idea that a shock to government spending creates a (weak) Keynesian effect on GDP in the short run, while a shock to taxes brings about a non-Keynesian effect

How to achieve and sustain fiscal discipline in Turkey: Rising Taxes, reducing government spending or a combination of both?

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between tax revenue and government spending in order to make some policy suggestions on how to achieve fiscal discipline in Turkey. We have used the cointegrated vector autoregression (VAR) method along with the Granger causality test (1969). The empirical findings indicate that there is a uni-directional causality running from spending to tax revenue. In other words, our findings support the spend-and-tax hypothesis for fiscal discipline in Turkey over the period of 1975 - 2011. Since there is a uni-directional causality, running from government spending to tax revenue, spending restrictions are required to reduce budget deficits, and reducing government spending is a better solution than increasing tax revenue to obtain optimal fiscal discipline in Turkey

Obtaining candidate salt tolerant wheat mutant lines derived from combination of sodium azide mutagenesis and somatic embryogenesis

Plant mutants are important bio-resources for crop breeding and functional gene studies. In the present study, conventional chemical mutagenesis technique was combined with somatic embryogenesis to obtain candidate salt tolerant mutant wheat lines. For this purpose, 0-5 mM Sodium Azide (NaN3) was applied for 30 minutes to embryonic calli under in vitro conditions to produce genetic variations in the bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L. cv. Adana 99). Treated and non-treated calli were put in somatic embryo induction media, and 3 and 4 mM NaN3 were determined as optimum mutation doses for somatic embryo induction. The obtained somatic embryos from these optimum mutagen doses were then screened for tolerance in regeneration media containing 125 mM NaCl to be used to improve tolerance to salt stress. In NaN3 treatment, 14 mutants with moderate salt tolerance were obtained. The results suggest that the in vitro technique in combination with chemical mutagenesis may be a useful approach for accelerating breeding strategies to create enough genetic variation in populations and to get fourth generation putative salt tolerant wheat mutant lines in less than 1.5 years.Bitki mutantları, bitki ıslahı ve fonksiyonel gen çalışmaları için önemli biyo-kaynaklardır. Mevcut çalışmada, tuza toleranslı aday mutant buğday hatları elde etmek için somatik embriyogenez ile konvansiyonel kimyasal mutajenez tekniği birleştirildi. Bu amaçla; ekmeklik buğdayda (Triticum aestivum L. cv. Adana 99) genetik varyasyonlar yaratmak için embriyonik kalluslara 0-5 mM Sodyum Azid (NaN3), 30 dakika boyunca in vitro ortamda uygulandı. İşlem görmüş ve görmemiş kalluslar, somatik embriyo teşvik ortamına konularak somatik embriyo teşviki için 3 ve 4 mM NaN3 uygulaması optimum mutasyon dozları olarak tespit edildi. Ardından bu mutasyon dozları ile muamele edilen kalluslardan elde edilen somatik embriyolar tuz stresine tolerans geliştirmek için kullanılacak 125 mM NaCl içeren rejenerasyon ortamlarında tolerans açısından tarandı. NaN3 muamelesinde, orta düzeyde tuza toleransı olan 14 mutant elde edildi. Elde edilen sonuçlar; kimyasal mutagenez ile kombine halde in vitro teknik uygulamasının, popülasyonlarda yeterli genetik varyasyon oluşturmak ve 1.5 yıldan daha az bir sürede dördüncü jenerasyon tuz toleranslı aday buğday mutant hatlarını ıslah sürecini hızlandırarak elde etmek için kullanışlı bir yöntem olabileceğini göstermektedir

Genetic diversity in sodium azide induced wheat mutants studied by ssr markers

Mutationsinduced artificially way are one of the tools used to increase genetic variation in populations where genetic variation has been shrinking especially due to various reasons one of which is domestication. In this study, Simple Sequence Repeats (SSRs) markers were used to screen genetic diversity in sodium azide (NaN3) induced fourteen fourth-generation advanced wheat mutant lines. The mean values of polymorphism rate (29.44%), polymorphic information content (PIC; 0.82), marker index (MI; 1.95) and resolving power (Rp; 1.31) were calculated according to SSR marker profiles. Two SSRs, Xwmc170 and Xcfd6, were detected as the most polymorphic markers, Xgwm626 proved the highest PIC and MI values, and Xcfd6 gave the highest Rp value. Unweighted Pair Group Method with Arithmetic Mean (UPGMA) dendrogram classified 15 plants into four groups. The Principle Component Analysis (PCA) showed 88.9% of the total genetic variation. The results obtained in the present study might be useful for determining the efficiency of NaN3 for creating mutant wheat lines with enough genetic variability to implement wheat-breeding programs as germplasm resources.Yapay yolla indüklenen mutasyonlar, genetik varyasyonun özellikle ıslah gibi çeşitli nedenlerden dolayı küçüldüğü popülasyonlarda, çeşitliliği arttıran araçlardan biridir. Bu çalışmada, sodyum azid (NaN3) kullanılarak indüklenen on dört dördüncü jenerasyon ileri mutant buğday hatlarında, genetik çeşitliliği taramak için Basit Dizi Tekrarları (SSR) belirteçleri kullanıldı. SSR belirteç profillerine göre ortalama polimorfizm oranı (% 29,44), polimorfik bilgi içeriği (PIC; 0,82), belirteç indeksi (Mİ; 1,95) ve belirteç çözünürlük gücü (Rp; 1,31) hesaplandı. İki SSR belirteci, Xwmc170 ve Xcfd6, en yüksek polimorfizm oranına sahip belirteçler olarak tespit edildi. Xgwm626 en yüksek PIC ve Mİ değerlerini, Xcfd6 de en yüksek Rp değerini verdi. Ağırlıksız Çift-Grup Yöntemi ile Aritmetik Ortalama (UPGMA) dendrogramı 15 bitkiyi dört gruba ayırdı. Temel Bileşenler Analizi (PCA) toplam genetik varyasyonun % 88,9'unu gösterdi. Bu çalışma, buğday ıslah programlarında genetik kaynak olarak kullanılmak üzere yeterli genetik çeşitliliğe sahip mutant buğday hatlarını oluşturmak için sodyum azitin etkinliğinin gösterilmesi hususunda yararlı olabilir

Social Media Choices and Uses: Comparing Turkish and American Young-Adults\u27 Social Media Activism

Advocates of new media—especially social networks, blogs, and photo/content sharing sites—argue that these tools create transformative impacts on society. Recently, around the world younger activists in popular democracy movements, uprisings, and protests, feeling disengaged by traditional forms of political discourse, have debated their positions on new media, and have used digital media to communicate, organize, and coordinate protest activities. While some media scholars suggest this is an indication that young people are active in creating a public sphere constructed by social media, there is still little real-world evidence that the technological potentials are widely realized. To address this gap, this comparative case study aims to reveal how some “ordinary” young people are using social media in response to political issues, investigating: if social media create a new kind of dynamic arena for their public activism; which factors may stimulate the young to activism; and whether their motivation is powerful enough to resist the status quo. Describing and analyzing qualitative interview data from a study of Turkish students and a parallel collection of data from US students, we construct an explanation of their communicated understandings of their differences and similarities in opportunities for political actions. Our findings indicate: there are many similar technical capacities; some similar topics are seen as political; and there are different understandings of what is and is not for public discussion among their personal collections of contacts and friends, with varying levels of real-world connections. This analysis is important in terms of understanding the ways uses of media technologies may be affected by different cultures, political and social conceptualizations and online communication patterns

Evaluation of contact sensitivity to topical drugs in patients with contact dermatitis

Background and Design: Topical drugs are an important group of contact allergens. The present study aimed to evaluate contact sensitivity to topical drugs in patients with contact dermatitis. Materials and Methods: Between 2003 and 2008, 129 patients were followed up at the Department of Dermatology at Ankara University School of Medicine with clinically suspected contact sensitivity to topical drugs. In this study, the patch test reactions to the European Standard Battery and topical drugs used by the patients and medicament patch test results were evaluated. Results: Positive patch test reaction to one or more allergens was found in 80 (62.0%) of 129 patients included in the study. Sixty-one of the 80 patients (61/129, 47.3%) had positive patch test reaction to medicaments. Medicament sensitivity was detected in 37.9% (49/129) of subjects. Nitrofurazone was found to be the most common allergen (18.6%). Discussion: The present study showed that topical drugs are a frequent cause of allergic contact dermatitis. Therefore, the probability of contact sensitivity to topical drugs should also be considered in patients with the clinical diagnosis of allergic contact dermatitis and, suspected cases should be evaluated further with patch testing in order to find the responsible allergens

The vicious circle of comparison: creative labor and occidentalism in documentary filmmaking in Turkey

In order to provide critique of a creative cultural work, besides focusing on political and economic organization of a cultural industry or the content of its end products, some scholars highlighted the importance of focusing on subjective experiences of workers. They argue experiences of the workers must be more in the foreground due to some of characteristics of the work that makes it more complex than other types of work, such as its impacts on the self-esteem of workers or the ambivalent criteria for deciding on the quality of end products of cultural industries. By embracing these perspectives in the literature, with the help of discourses in the empirical data gathered by interviewing with 17 documentary filmmakers, this thesis analyzes subjective experiences of the documentary filmmakers producing in Turkey and accordingly, documentary filmmaking sector of the country. This thesis argues that the focus of discourses is on the insufficiency of the quantity and quality of documentaries produced in Turkey. However, the literature about documentary filmmaking in Turkey and official accounts address the non-negligible number of documentaries being produced annually in Turkey and they highlight the satisfaction of the audiences and critics on the quality of documentaries. These accounts rather address other kinds of problems such as the visibility and distribution of the documentaries. This thesis argues that the framework of Occidentalism could be useful to discuss the impacts of these discourses and reason of the difference between two tendencies: Discourses that are focusing on the quality and quantity of the documentaries, mostly by emphasizing either being a country that has a strong tradition of cultural production (like 'Western countries') or not, can trap the discussion about the genre. As a result, they can be paving the way of de-emphasizing other kinds of urgent problems of the sector in the country, such as the visibility and distribution of the documentaries

The relative effectiveness of Monetary and Fiscal Policies on growth: what does long-run SVAR model tell us?

This paper studies empirically the relative effectiveness of monetary and fiscal policies on growth. Unlike many previous papers which have focused, to a large extent, on the effect of monetary or fiscal policies separately, this paper considers the comparative efficacy of the two policies on growth by applying the Structural Vector Autoregression (SVAR) model to the quarterly data for Turkey over the period 2001:Q1-2014:Q2. The empirical findings of this paper show that both monetary and fiscal policies do have significant effects on growth. However, monetary policy is more effective than fiscal policy in stimulating growth. More specifically, interest rate ―a monetary policy variable― is the most potent instrument in affecting growth. Then budget deficit ―a fiscal policy variable― becomes the second important variable after interest rate. These findings suggest that although the relative effectiveness in boosting growth is different, both policies significantly affect growth, suggesting that they should be used jointly but in an efficient manner

Taxes and Private Consumption Expenditure: A Component Based Analysis for Turkey

The purpose of this paper is to analyze empirically the short- and long-run effects of tax shocks on private consumption expenditure on component basis in Turkey. To do so, first, we decomposed private consumption expenditure into four major sub-categories, including food, education, and transportation, among others. And then, we employed a Structural VAR (SVAR) model which was calibrated to quarterly data set for the period 2003:Q1-2013:Q3. Specifically, our empirical findings show that the effects of tax shocks on the components of private consumption expenditure differ in the short- and long-run. In the short-run, all the taxes which we considered have a significant effect on the components of private consumption expenditure, whereas in the long-run only two taxes - the VAT and the personal income tax - affect it. However, it is important to highlight that the components of private consumption expenditure are much more affected by the VAT in the both short- and long-run. In brief, the findings reveal that the effects of tax shocks on private consumption expenditure shows difference, changing according to sorts of taxes, components of the expenditure, and the length of period