Import Substitution, Productivity and Competitiveness: Evidence from Korean and Turkish Manufacturing Industry

This paper examines the relation between import substitution, labour productivity and industrial competitiveness. The data used in the analysis are obtained from UNIDO Industrial Demand Supply (2013) and UNIDO Industrial Statistics (2013) databases and cover the period of 1981-2001. Our results show that Turkish economy has really left import substitution after 1980. However, we found significant share of import substitution in total production in professional and scientific equipment, transportation equipment, electrical machinery, miscellaneous petroleum products, industrial chemicals industries and petroleum refineries in Korea especially in the 1990s. Our findings based on unbalanced dynamic panel data estimations showed that import substitution did not enhance labour productivity in manufacturing industry of both Korea and Turkey. However, we found that import substitution affects industrial competitiveness positively in both Korea and Turkey. Finally, we found in this study that while Korean manufacturing industry competitiveness is closely associated with labour productivity, competitiveness of Turkish manufacturing industry depends on the factors such as exchange rates, wage differentials rather than labour productivity

Tarımsal Üretimde Girdi Kullanımının Etkinliği: Türkiye’den Kanıtlar

The negative impacts of the increase in the demand for agricultural products and changes in the Earth’s ecological system due to climate change have triggered disequilibrium tendencies in the markets for agricultural products both in Turkey and the World. This development has made efficiency in agricultural production more important than ever. The aim of this study is to explore the factors effecting (in)efficiency of input use in agricultural production in Turkey. For this aim, we collected data on crop production by conducting interviews with about 2000 farmers in 17 different regions of Turkey on four different products (wheat, barley, rice, and sunflower). The results obtained by using “Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA)” show that fertilizers are used improperly in agricultural production in Turkey. The results also show that using certified seed increases efficiency of wheat and rice production while land analysis for fertilizer selection increases efficiency of wheat and sunflower production.JRC.J.4-Agriculture and Life Sciences in the Econom