Causal Links Between Trade And Economic Growth Evidence From Turkey And European Union Countries

Openness and economic growth is discussed by heavy concentration on the deterministic relationship running from trade flows to economic growth. While traditional motive of export promotion based growth strategies is heavily discussed, it is the modern growth theories that define possible alternative mechanisms. Technology transfer, place of innovation and spillovers are at the center of the debate. However it is the more contemporary studies that also underline the possible reverse relationship. Originating from such a discussion the study aims to search for the causal relationship by working on a new European Union candidate country, Turkey. Results point out that short term dynamics illustrates a two way relationship.international trade, causality, Turkey

“Geography of talent and regional differences in Spain”

Tentative empirical evidence suggests that the agglomeration of talent contributes to regional development. However, given that talented people are not evenly distributed across regions, this paper seeks to determine how the concentration of talent affects patterns of regional development. Here, we empirically evaluate the effects of the distribution of talent on regional differences by means of a detailed analysis of the 17 Autonomous Communities of Spain between 1996 and 2004. We hypothesise that regions specialising in strategic sectors that are creative and which can be assumed to enjoy rapid growth in productivity will experience faster rates of development and, in turn, that this concentration of talent will have a positive impact on the region’s economic performance. Thus, we believe that this mechanism can explain the marked regional imbalances in Spain. Our findings confirm that regional differences, measured in terms of GDP per capita and by, - industrial and service- oriented production, are influenced by the Communities’ talent bases as determined by, educational attainment and employment in assumed to be strategic for regional development, inasmuch as these sectors provide economic specialization.Talent, Regional differences, Panel data, Spain. JEL classification: C33, O18, R11, J24.

The Spatial Distribution of Human Capital: Can It Really Be Explained by Regional Differences in Market Access?

This paper tests the robustness of estimates of market access impact on regional variability in human capital, as previously derived in the NEG literature. Our hypothesis is that these estimates of the coefficient of market access, in fact, capture the effects of regional differences in the industrial mix and the spatial dependence in the distribution of human capital. Results for the Spanish provinces indicate that the estimated impact of market access vanishes and becomes non-significant once these two elements are included in the empirical analysis.human capital, geography, market access, spatial dependence. JEL classification:C21, I21, R12,

Estimating the economic cost of Turkey’s PKK conflict

Turkey’s conflict with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has had a deeply negative effect on the regions most affected by the violence. But what has the overall economic cost been to Turkey as a whole? Fırat Bilgel and Burhan Can Karahasan present the key factors that have underpinned the issue and calculate that Turkish GDP could have been 14 per cent higher in the absence of the conflict. This is particularly important when the role of underdevelopment and poverty is considered in the perpetuation of violence

The Spatial Distribution of Human Capital: Can It Really Be Explained by Regional Differences in Market Access?

This paper checks for the robustness of the estimate of the impact of market access on the regional variability of human capital, derived from the NEG literature. The hypothesis is that the estimate of the coefficient of the measure of market access is actually capturing the effect of regional differences in the industrial mix, and the spatial dependence in the distribution of human capital. Results for the Spanish provinces indicate that the estimated impact of market access vanishes and becomes non-significant once these two elements are included in the empirical analysis.

Thirty Years of Conflict and Economic Growth in Turkey: A Synthetic Control Approach. LEQS Discussion Paper No. 112/2016 June 2016

This study seeks to estimate the economic effects of PKK terrorism in Turkey in a causal framework. We create a synthetic control group that reproduces the Turkish real per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) before PKK terrorism emerged in the second half of the 1980s. We compare the GDP of the synthetic Turkey without terrorism to the actual Turkey with terrorism for the period 1955-2008. Covering the period of 1988-2008, we find that the Turkish per capita GDP would have been higher by an average of about $1,585 per year had it not been exposed to PKK terrorism. This translates into an average of 13.8 percent higher per capita GDP or a 0.62 percentage points higher annual growth over a period of 21 years. Our estimate is robust to country exclusion, sparse controls, various non-outcome characteristics as predictors of GDP, alternative specifications of the in-space placebo experiments and to other potentially confounding interventions to the sample units in the pre-terrorism period

Geography of talent and regional differences in Spain

Tentative empirical evidence suggests that the agglomeration of talent contributes to regional development. However, given that talented people are not evenly distributed across regions, this paper seeks to determine how the concentration of talent affects patterns of regional development. Here, we empirically evaluate the effects of the distribution of talent on regional differences by means of a detailed analysis of the 17 Autonomous Communities of Spain between 1996 and 2004. We hypothesise that regions specialising in strategic sectors that are creative and which can be assumed to enjoy rapid growth in productivity will experience faster rates of development and, in turn, that this concentration of talent will have a positive impact on the region’s economic performance. Thus, we believe that this mechanism can explain the marked regional imbalances in Spain. Our findings confirm that regional differences, measured in terms of GDP per capita and by, - industrial and service- oriented production, are influenced by the Communities’ talent bases as determined by, educational attainment and employment in assumed to be strategic for regional development, inasmuch as these sectors provide economic specialization

The economic costs of separatist terrorism in Turkey

Turkey has been suffering from separatist terrorism and the political conflict it implies since the mid 1980s, both of which are believed to have a negative impact on economic welfare. This article investigates the economic costs of PKK -Kurdistan Workers’ Party- terrorism, particularly in the Eastern and Southeastern provinces of Turkey by invoking the synthetic control method. We create a synthetic control group that mimics the socioeconomic characteristics of the provinces exposed to terrorism before the PKK terrorism emerged in the mid-1980s. We then compare the real GDP of the synthetic provinces without terrorism to the actual provinces with terrorism for the period 1975-2001. Causal inference is carried out by comparing the real per capita GDP gap between the synthetic and actual provinces and the intensity of terrorist activity as measured by the number of terrorism casualties. We find that after the emergence of terrorism, the per capita real GDP in Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia declined by about 6.6 percent relative to a comparable synthetic Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia without terrorism

Location Patterns of Creative Capital and Regional Disparities in Spain

The creative class as a source of growth has been afforded increasing attention in recent years. However, creative people are not distributed evenly across space, tending rather to concentrate in particular locations. The location decisions of these creative people have been forwarded as a significant factor in accounting for regional disparities in growth and development (Florida, 2002; Fritsch and Stuetzer, 2009). Inspired by the ongoing debate surrounding the creative class theory, this study investigates the spatial distribution of creative capital and its links with regional disparities by examining the geographical divergence of provincial income in Spain. Our findings indicate that although provinces with low levels of creative capital around 1996 experienced an increase in their creative employment in the years leading up to 2004, they still lag behind the northern (and, in particular, the north-eastern) provinces of Spain. More interestingly we report strong spillover effects among the leading and lagging provinces. This spatial pattern of creative capital also accounts for the north-south divide in Spain. Thus, our empirical evidence shows that the provinces with high levels of creative capital in northern Spain are more developed in terms of provincial income even when controlling for other determinants of the process, including industrial development, regional spillover effects and human capital development

Understanding Covid-19 Mobility Through Human Capital: A Unified Causal Framework

This paper seeks to identify the causal impact of educational human capital on social distancing behavior at workplace in Turkey using district-level data for the period of April 2020 - February 2021. We adopt a unified causal framework, predicated on domain knowledge, theory-justified constraints anda data-driven causal structure discovery using causal graphs. We answer our causal query by employing machine learning prediction algorithms; instrumental variables in the presence of latent confounding and Heckman's model in the presence of selection bias. Results show that educated regions are able to distance-work and educational human capital is a key factor in reducing workplace mobility, possibly through its impact on employment. This pattern leads to higher workplace mobility for less educated regions and translates into higher Covid-19 infection rates. The future of the pandemic lies in less educated segments of developing countries and calls for public health action to decrease its unequal and pervasive impact.WOS:0009378408000012-s2.0-8514846576136844967Science Citation Index Expanded-Social Sciences Citation IndexarticleUluslararası işbirliği ile yapılmayan - HAYIRMart2023YÖK - 2022-2