Competition Policy in Turkey

We review the enforcement of competition policy and the activities of Turkish Competition Authority during 1997-2000. Descriptive statistics are provided on the caseload handled, such as types of anti-competitive behavior investigated, breakdown of investigations by industry, violations found, and penalties imposed. Competition Authority has been stretched in terms of manpower as it has faced a flood of applications in addition to having to develop the necessary secondary legislation. The most salient cases handled concerned infringement of competition, while a rather lenient position was taken in authorizing mergers and acquisitions. The silence of the Turkish Competition Law regarding public undertakings is a potential source of problem for aligning competition policies with those of EU.competition policy; competition authority; Turkey

An analysis of mergers and acquisitions in the Turkish banking sector

We explore various aspects of mergers and acquisitions in the banking industry within a simple model that allows explicit comparison of sector performance before and after the mergers and acquisitions. The industry structure we look at involves a few dominant banks and a competitive fringe, which we take it as the structure most likely to resemble the Turkish banking industry in the aftermath of the ongoing restructuring process. Using a reasonable set of parameters to simulate the model, we do comparative statics exercises regarding the impact of mergers among domestic as well as with foreign banks on equilibrium outcomes.banking; mergers and acquisitions; imperfect competition; Turkey

Firm-Specific Skills, Wage Bargaining, and Efficiency

We study the bargaining relationship between a firm and its incumbent worker who possesses firm-specific human capital. We show that, in the contract renewal stage, the worker's ability to use his firm-specific skills strategically increases his bargaining power vis-a-vis the firm. The firm can threaten to fire the worker and hire a new inexperienced worker, but this threat is not always credible. Even though the bargaining takes place in an environment with perfect information, the game has inefficient equilibria where delays occur in real time

Strategic Disclosure of Firm-Specific Skills in Wage Bargaining

We study the bargaining relationship between a firm and its incumbent worker who possesses firm-specific human capital. We show that the worker's ability to disclose his skills strategically increases his bargaining power. The game may have inefficient equilibria where delays occur in real time. With the addition of outside options for both the firm and the worker, delays are shortened whenever outside options are credible threats. Our model also predicts that wages are procyclical, and there can be a variation in wages for a given job level

The welfare effects of government's preferences over spending and its financing

In this paper we examine the welfare effects of government's preferences over consumption and investment spending under different methods of financing in a two-period OLG model. The government has a utility function defined over the decomposition of her spending over two periods and raises funds by issuing bonds and by printing money. She allocates her funds into consumption expenditure that benefits the current population and investment expenditure which benefits the future population. The model is calibrated using data on the U.S. economy for the period 1981-2004. The findings reveal that the government's choice of financing as well as composition of spending into consumption-investment have differing impacts on the welfare of the young and old generations.Seigniorage; Bond financing; Composition of government spending; Overlapping generations

Competition between regulated and non-regulated generators on electric power networks

The ongoing restructuring of the electricity sectors in many countries raises the policy question of to what extent the public generating assets should be privatized and what the objective function of any remaining public generation companies should be. We analyze the optimal regulatory policy in the context of a mixed wholesale electricity market in which a private and a public generator engage in Cournot competition. In a standard industry without externalities, instructing the public firm to maximize profits instead of total social surplus in similar settings may turn out to be welfare improving. In an electricity market, however, the possibility of congestion in the transmission network and externalities between generators stemming from loop flows change the nature of equilibria and the optimal regulatory policy dramatically. Not only that instruction of pure welfare maximization is not a part of optimal regulatory policy in many instances, instruction of profit maximization is not a part of optimal regulatory policy, except in one case, either. We also extend the literature by allowing the public firm to maximize not only its profits or social welfare, but any convex combination of the two, as well as considering cost asymmetries and shadow cost of public funds. Furthermore, our framework also applies to a wholesale power industry where regulated private firms and unregulated private firms are competing, rather than public and private firms.electricity markets; mixed markets; regulation; competition

Competition Policy in Turkey

We review the enforcement of competition policy and the activities of Turkish Competition Authority during 1997-2000. Descriptive statistics are provided on the caseload handled, such as types of anti-competitive behavior investigated, breakdown of investigations by industry, violations found, and penalties imposed. Competition Authority has been stretched in terms of manpower as it has faced a flood of applications in addition to having to develop the necessary secondary legislation. The most salient cases handled concerned infringement of competition, while a rather lenient position was taken in authorizing mergers and acquisitions. The silence of the Turkish Competition Law regarding public undertakings is a potential source of problem for aligning competition policies with those of EU

Competition Policy in Turkey

We review the enforcement of competition policy and the activities of Turkish Competition Authority during 1997-2000. Descriptive statistics are provided on the caseload handled, such as types of anti-competitive behavior investigated, breakdown of investigations by industry, violations found, and penalties imposed. Competition Authority has been stretched in terms of manpower as it has faced a flood of applications in addition to having to develop the necessary secondary legislation. The most salient cases handled concerned infringement of competition, while a rather lenient position was taken in authorizing mergers and acquisitions. The silence of the Turkish Competition Law regarding public undertakings is a potential source of problem for aligning competition policies with those of EU

An analysis of mergers and acquisitions in the Turkish banking sector

We explore various aspects of mergers and acquisitions in the banking industry within a simple model that allows explicit comparison of sector performance before and after the mergers and acquisitions. The industry structure we look at involves a few dominant banks and a competitive fringe, which we take it as the structure most likely to resemble the Turkish banking industry in the aftermath of the ongoing restructuring process. Using a reasonable set of parameters to simulate the model, we do comparative statics exercises regarding the impact of mergers among domestic as well as with foreign banks on equilibrium outcomes

An analysis of mergers and acquisitions in the Turkish banking sector

We explore various aspects of mergers and acquisitions in the banking industry within a simple model that allows explicit comparison of sector performance before and after the mergers and acquisitions. The industry structure we look at involves a few dominant banks and a competitive fringe, which we take it as the structure most likely to resemble the Turkish banking industry in the aftermath of the ongoing restructuring process. Using a reasonable set of parameters to simulate the model, we do comparative statics exercises regarding the impact of mergers among domestic as well as with foreign banks on equilibrium outcomes