The Effects of Volatility on Growth and Financial Development through Capital Market Imperfections

This paper provides a model to account for the empirical evidence that volatility reduces growth. In the model, greater volatility increases the cost associated with capital market imperfections and induces the financial intermediaries to charge higher interest rates. The model is based on one of overlapping generations with two types of technologies. The more productive technology requires fixed investment in the first period. Individual with income less than the amount of fixed investment may borrow in financial markets to obtain more productive technology. Increase in volatility raises the cost of borrowing and makes it less attractive to invest in more productive technology for individuals below certain income in the first period. Hence, volatility reduces growth by deterring people from taking advantage of more productive technology. This model also explains the empirical findings of Ramey and Ramey (1995) that investment is not the channel between volatility and growth by suggesting that totals factor productivity rather than the total factor accumulation is the key for growth.Volatility; Growth; Financial Development; Capital Market Imperfections; Costly State Verification; Limited Enforceability of Contracts

Distributional Effects of Boom-Bust Cycles in Developing Countries with Financial Frictions

This paper sheds light on the distributional implications of the exchange rate based stabilizations with financial imperfections when a country is populated by heterogeneous agents with respect to their source of income. This paper shows that boom-bust cycles in developing countries lead to income redistribution from tradable to nontradable sectors. Since the share of tradable sectors in aggregate GDP increases above its usual share with the devaluation of the currency, the individuals in tradable sectors pay more tax than what they receive as capital inflow in the expansion phase of the economy. The opposite holds for the individuals in nontradable sectors who gain more from the capital inflow as compared to what they lose from taxationDistributional Effects; Boom-Bust Cycles; Financial Frictions

The Failure of Competition in the Credit Card Market in Turkey: The New Empirical Evidence

The high credit card interest rates in Turkey attracted considerable attention in recent years to regulate the Turkish credit card industry. Before any regulation decision taken, there needs to be better conceptualization and analysis of the Turkish credit card market. This paper sheds some light in this direction. First, we highlight the most striking aspects of the Turkish credit card market. After exposing the problem, we benefit from the existing theoretical and empirical studies on the structure of competition in the credit card industry. Potential reasons for the lack of competitions are denoted. Having the existing studies in mind, we finally, construct an empirical model to estimate the market structure in the Turkish credit card industry. Newly disseminated data on the Turkish credit card industry is first introduced in this paper. Our empirical results are based on the panel data set of 22 banks from the second quarter of 2001 to the third quarter of 2005. In addition to random and fixed effects regressions, instrumental variable fixed effect regressions are run on this sample. Our results robustly conclude that the credit cards interest rates in Turkey are economically insensitive to the changes in the cost of fund. This result indicates that Turkish credit card market is characterized with lack of strong competition and hence suggests some regulatory measures.Credit Cards, Regulation, Supervision, Financial Markets, Banking, Competition Market Structure.

The Regulation of the Credit Card Market in Turkey

The rapid growth in Turkish credit card market brought together new issues. Card holders and consumer unions complain about the high interest rates, economists complain about the default rates and banks complain about the amnesties. After all of these complaints coinciding with the accelerating suicide incidences due to credit card debts, regulation has been enacted in the credit card market in Turkey. In 2003, credit cards had been taken into the scope of the Consumer Protection Law. This was the first legal arrangement on the credit cards. However it was not satisfying. It was criticized for bringing out temporary solutions. In 2005, a more comprehensive credit card law came into effect. With this regulation, Central Bank of Turkey has put a ceiling on the credit card interest rates and clarified some issues that were left untouched. In this paper; reasons, advantages, disadvantages of this regulation are discussed along with a quick glance on the development of credit card market in Turkey. The regulation and amnesties in 2003 and 2005 are examined and their effects are exposed from the point of view of parties involved: banks, customers and government.Credit Cards; Regulation; Amnesty; Interest Rates; Default; Banks; Consumer Unions