Foreign Trade Deficit Sustainability of Turkey

This paper examines whether the foreign trade deficit of Turkey is sustainable or not by using three-regime threshold autoregressive unit root test of Kapetanious and Shin (2006). Three models are estimated including linear OLS, two-regime self-exciting threshold autoregressive and three-regime self-exciting threshold autoregressive models. The three-regime threshold autoregressive model is chosen as appropriate model for foreign trade deficit of Turkey by employing sup-Wald test. The finding results of the three-regime threshold autoregressive unit root test indicate that Turkey’s foreign trade deficit is not sustainable.

Spatial Pseudo Panel Data Models with an Application to Mincer Wage Equations

The studies using Mincer equations are generally applied to cross-sectional data at the micro-level. There are however limited studies conducted with macro or panel data for wage equations. Pseudo panel data methods can be applied to empirical studies by creating cohorts from repeated cross-sectional data in the absence of genuine panel data. Difference in both the human and labour resources according to the spatial positions may also affect the prediction of the wage equations. We aim to introduce the application of spatial pseudo panel models by creating cohorts according to the birth years of employees and regions in which they live from the Turkish household labour survey for the period 2010– 2015. As a result, we find that the spatial autocorrelation model is appropriate for wage equations of Turkey. We also find that return of education on wages is 11% while return of experience on wages is 4%

Evaluation of a vaccination strategy by serosurveillance data: The case of varicella

Serological studies have many important epidemiologic applications. They can be used to investigate acquisition of various infections in different populations, measure the induction of an immune response in the host, evaluate the persistence of antibody, identify appropriate target groups and the age for vaccination. Serological studies can also be used to determine the vaccine efficacy. Since 1995 a varicella vaccine is available and it has been recommended in several countries (e.g. USA, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, Ecuador, etc.). Nevertheless few varicella seroprevalence studies in countries that adopted an URV are available. It is related to the relatively recent introduction of the vaccination and to the lack of structured and collaborative surveillance systems based on serosurvey at national or regional level. Varicella seroprevalence data collected before the introduction of vaccination strategies allowed to establish the age of vaccination (e.g., indicated the opportunity to offer the vaccine to Italian susceptible adolescents). In the post-vaccination era, seroprevalence data demonstrated vaccine as immunogenic and excluded an increase of the age of infection linked to the vaccination strategy. New seroprevalence studies should be performed to answer to open questions, such as the long-term immunity and the change of the herpes zoster epidemiological pattern related to the vaccine