Quel avenir pour Istanbul en tant que centre financier international?

Istanbul’s place in the global financial system has become regionally prominent as Turkey has opened up to a globalizing economy since the 1980s. The AKP government now wants to not only entrench Istanbul’s status as an attractive emerging market but also make Istanbul a globally important financial services centre. For this, a project of reforms, initiatives and building work has recently been put in motion. The article contextualizes this project by looking at the politics, economy and markets nexus in Turkey since the 1980s. It then reviews the project’s progress in various domains and comments on its future by taking cues from recent political turns in the AKP leadership concerning economy and financial system

Sense-making and storytelling in financial markets: the case of the Istanbul stock exchange

In this thesis, I investigate sense-making processes in financial markets. My focus is on the role of narratives in these routine activities in digital market places or what Cetina and Preda (2007) describe as scopic market systems. I conceptualize narratives told by market professionals in these systems as another form of market device (Callon et al., 2007) which combines different modes of knowing and explanation to cope with flows of data/information and funds, and works to generate value from assets exposed to markets. From a sociological perspective, I argue that the substitution of social network-based information search and face-to-face exchange relationships in financial markets with flow-based and anonymised representations and exchange relationships do not undermine the importance of social networks in shaping sense-making and decision-making in financial markets. However to argue so, I broaden the concept of social network with the help of Bourdieu’s (1997) notion of economic, social and cultural capital. I introduce the notions of field and meta-field of power, habitus, and position-taking by Bourdieu (1997, and Wacquant 1992) to my conceptual discussion of financial markets. In light of this, I describe financial markets as hierarchical and competitive structures inhabited by different groups of investors and intermediaries and shaped by competition and conflict among these groups. I argue that these groups’ position in the field is conditioned by their economic, social, and cultural capital which are generated and sustained within and outwith the field. Consequently, I suggest that these groups’ sense-making and investment activities and their use of market devices including storytelling acts should exhibit distinctive modes in accordance with the specific positions they have voluntarily or involuntarily taken in the field. To substantiate these claims with narrative evidence, I present the case of the Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE) in Turkey. Opened in 1985, the ISE provides an instrumental case to study the role of sense-making narratives as another form of market device in scopic market systems with a Bourdieusian sociological framework. As gathered from publicly available information and early pilot fieldwork in the ISE headquarters, the ISE as a field has been occupied by three dominant investor types since 1991. These are domestic retail (DRIs), domestic institutional (DIIs), and foreign institutional investors (FIIs). These three groups have a dominant weight in either trading volume or share ownership in the ISE. Drawing on my (participatory) observations between 2008 and 2009 in an asset management company and four brokerage houses which served DRIs and/or DIIs and FIIs, I present evidence on how distinct combinations of economic, social and cultural capitals among these dominant investor-intermediary groups shape their sense-making activities and consequent sense-making stories in the ISE

Situated cognition and narrative heuristic: evidence from retail investors and their brokers

In this paper, I discuss how a situated cognition perspective can reveal the socially constructed nature of seemingly psychological heuristics and errors in market actors’ judgements and decisions in financial markets. In doing so, I present a complementary approach to the heuristics and biases research in psychology and behavioural finance. More specifically, I draw on the narrative mode of knowing and explanation in real market settings as a framework to understand the content and the process of socially constructed knowledge in financial markets. Here, narratives of market actors and their underlying frames and causal schemas are assumed to function as a judgement heuristic in processing information flows. I then discuss an application of this approach to a sample of brokerage firms and investment advisers serving retail investors in the Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE). My findings focus on a shared frame and the associated causal schema about the ISE and global financial markets. This observed interpretive model underpinned my interlocutors’ narrative judgements and forecasts about the ISE's movements and constituted a form of representativeness heuristic and anchoring

Valuations, marketing and uncertainty:a field study of financial analysts and salespeople

Purpose This paper aims to explore how sell-side analysts and salespeople make sense of uncertainty on their market knowledge, valuation and marketing outputs. Design/methodology/approach Data is collected by direct observations of and interviews with analysts and salespeople in the Turkish stock exchange, an emerging market with considerable global fund management activity. Findings Analysts face considerable uncertainty on their market value forecasts but dismiss it as local dynamics not incorporable to valuation practices in global sell-side business. Salespeople, despite paying more attention to such dynamics owing to their sales tasks, limit themselves to analyst output in marketing. Both actors recognise the importance of analyst work to be able to have “a right to speak” in global sell-side business. Research limitations/implications Changing market conditions and regulations since the time of study have been shaping analysts and salespeople work in global sell-side business, for example, the way sell-side is compensated by buy-side, buy-side’s move to receiving sell-side services from fewer brokers and hence shrinking sell-side teams. The paper does not address these. Nonetheless, it shows how valuation and marketing can be two distinct lines of work in sell-side business irrespective of market conditions and raises the question for future research as to how sell-side professionals manage this distinction, and how they make sense of and cope with broad market dynamics beyond sell-side and buy-side relations (e.g. automated trading machines, online retail trading). Originality/value The paper provides rare observation-based insights into analyst and salespeople work, including their sensemaking of uncertainty. It shows the importance of market identities and associated knowledge in valuation and marketing work in sell-side business

Energy firms' responses to institutional ambiguity and complexity in long energy transitions:The case of the UK and China

We compare and contrast the UK and China as maximum variation cases for understanding long energy transitions from the state and the firm perspectives. We present case histories and corpus-based computer-assisted textual analyses on the long energy transitions in both countries. With these, we explore and explain how and why energy supply firms respond the way they do to the institutional ambiguities and complexities that characterize the long energy transitions in each case. Our findings demonstrate that a centrally coordinated and imposed approach by the state can generate institutional clarity in long energy transition, which is quickly seized on by firms striving to preserve and increase their resources and influence. Such clarity and transition processes lose momentum owing to the perennial trilemma of energy affordability, security and sustainability. Market-based mechanisms to trigger and sustain long energy transitions, complemented with focused and continuous state interventions (e.g., incentives, taxation) provide a more effective and accountable institutional framework for the state and energy firms to deal with the energy trilemma. Irrespective of the logic of the type of economy that manifests the backdrop for any long energy transition process, institutional ambiguity and complexity never disappear completely, owing to both the energy trilemma and the institutional multiplicities

Volume CXIV, Number 4, November 7, 1996

Objective: Turner syndrome (TS) is a chromosomal disorder caused by complete or partial X chromosome monosomy that manifests various clinical features depending on the karyotype and on the genetic background of affected girls. This study aimed to systematically investigate the key clinical features of TS in relationship to karyotype in a large pediatric Turkish patient population.Methods: Our retrospective study included 842 karyotype-proven TS patients aged 0-18 years who were evaluated in 35 different centers in Turkey in the years 2013-2014.Results: The most common karyotype was 45,X (50.7%), followed by 45,X/46,XX (10.8%), 46,X,i(Xq) (10.1%) and 45,X/46,X,i(Xq) (9.5%). Mean age at diagnosis was 10.2±4.4 years. The most common presenting complaints were short stature and delayed puberty. Among patients diagnosed before age one year, the ratio of karyotype 45,X was significantly higher than that of other karyotype groups. Cardiac defects (bicuspid aortic valve, coarctation of the aorta and aortic stenosis) were the most common congenital anomalies, occurring in 25% of the TS cases. This was followed by urinary system anomalies (horseshoe kidney, double collector duct system and renal rotation) detected in 16.3%. Hashimoto's thyroiditis was found in 11.1% of patients, gastrointestinal abnormalities in 8.9%, ear nose and throat problems in 22.6%, dermatologic problems in 21.8% and osteoporosis in 15.3%. Learning difficulties and/or psychosocial problems were encountered in 39.1%. Insulin resistance and impaired fasting glucose were detected in 3.4% and 2.2%, respectively. Dyslipidemia prevalence was 11.4%.Conclusion: This comprehensive study systematically evaluated the largest group of karyotype-proven TS girls to date. The karyotype distribution, congenital anomaly and comorbidity profile closely parallel that from other countries and support the need for close medical surveillance of these complex patients throughout their lifespa

Clinical and Laboratory Characteristics of Hyperprolactinemia in Children and Adolescents: National Survey

Conclusion: We present the largest cohort of children and adolescents with hyperprolactinemia in the literature to date. Hyperprolactinemia is more common in females and cabergoline is highly effective and practical to use in adolescents, due to its biweekly dosing. Indications for surgery in pediatric cases need to be revised

Turning the tables:how individual investors make use of data publics to take advantage of institutional investors

In the scholarly and popular discussions about the digital age and big data, there is a tendency to attribute a relatively weaker agency to individual actors vis-à-vis institutional actors such as corporations, and the state. While this is not surprising given the way data publics are generally constructed and used by powerful institutional actors, individual actors can actually make use of data publics in ways that empower them vis-à-vis institutional actors. In this exhibit, I will take you around the story of how in the Turkish stock market, since its opening in the 1986, the retail investor figure has incessantly sought to mould an elusive investor figure – namely the foreign institutional investor, into a data public to be able make judgements and decisions in the market place. The regulatory stance towards this retail investor interest had long been defined by the regulators’ concern for market liquidity, which translated into a rather transparent data environment that helped the Turkish retail investors in their judgements and decisions. This environment has in recent years been substituted with a regulatory desire to lift the Turkish market to developed market standards, and a concomitantly increasing data obstruction that has been welcomed by foreign institutional investors. Yet, this story ends with another twist that is poised to turn the tables again