On the European Union – Turkey Customs Union

The purpose of the paper is to study the European Union - Turkey customs union (CU) of 1995 covering trade in industrial goods. The customs union decision of 1995 tending to rules and disciplines on various regulatory border and behind-the-border policies covers in particular customs reform, technical barriers to trade, competition policy, intellectual property rights, and administrative procedures. The paper after assessing in each case the status quo at the time of the entry of the CU into force evaluates the commitments undertaken under the CU, and assesses the degree of implementation of the CU requirements as well as the administrative costs of implementation of the CU. Finally, the paper shows how the CU has successfully moved the Turkish economy from a government-controlled regime to a market based one.Economic Integration, Customs Union

Foreign exchange regime, the real exchange rate and current account sustainability: The case of Turkey

During the last two and half decades Turkey has suffered from three foreign exchange crisis resulting in considerable loss of income. The paper argues that the country in order to avoid the foreign exchange crisis has to stay away from having too big current account deficits. Noting that under perfect capital mobility there will always be the unavoidable risk of speculative attacks on the currency unless the country resolves its fiscal problems, attains price stability, and achieves a sound banking sector, the paper stresses importance of current account sustainability and highlights shortcomings of current policies pursued by Turkey. --Current account sustainability,Turkey

On managing adjustment to external shocks in oil importing developing countries

This paper employs country specific multisectoral general equilibrium models of Turkey, Kenya and India to study the adjustment problems confronting these countries. The affects of liberal and interventionist policies on GDP and on incomes of different classes are analysed. The results show that liberal policies minimise the GDP losses and that farmers are relatively better off under these policies.

Bringing EU-Turkey trade and investment relations up to date?

The case is made that the EU-Turkey CU of 1995 covering industrial goods should be modernised and modified to take into account the various and growing criticisms of the original CU. Furthermore, economic integration between the EU and Turkey should be strengthened by signing a complementary deep integration regional trade agreement (RTA) between the EU and Turkey, covering agriculture, SPS measures, services, government procurement, investment, and dispute settlement. For Turkey, the objective would be to achieve comprehensive liberalisation, while for the EU this is an ideal opportunity to harness the economic and political potential of deeper integration with Turkey, in line with its wider trade and investment policy

On managing adjustment to external shocks in oil importing developing countries

This paper employs country specific multisectoral general equilibrium models of Turkey, Kenya and India to study the adjustment problems confronting these countries. The affects of liberal and interventionist policies on GDP and on incomes of different classes are analysed. The results show that liberal policies minimise the GDP losses and that farmers are relatively better off under these policies

Foreign exchange regime, the real exchange rate and current account sustainability: The case of Turkey

During the last two and half decades Turkey has suffered from three foreign exchange crisis resulting in considerable loss of income. The paper argues that the country in order to avoid the foreign exchange crisis has to stay away from having too big current account deficits. Noting that under perfect capital mobility there will always be the unavoidable risk of speculative attacks on the currency unless the country resolves its fiscal problems, attains price stability, and achieves a sound banking sector, the paper stresses importance of current account sustainability and highlights shortcomings of current policies pursued by Turkey

On the European Union – Turkey Customs Union

The purpose of the paper is to study the European Union - Turkey customs union (CU) of 1995 covering trade in industrial goods. The customs union decision of 1995 extending to rules and disciplines on various regulatory border and behind-the-border policies covers in particular customs reform, technical barriers to trade, competition policy, intellectual property rights, and administrative procedures. The paper after assessing in each case the status quo at the time of the entry of the CU into force evaluates the commitments undertaken under the CU, and assesses the degree of implementation of the CU requirements as well as the administrative costs of implementation of the CU. Finally, the paper shows how the CU has successfully moved the Turkish economy from a government-controlled regime to a market based one

Food Safety: A Developing Country Perspective

Developing countries, trying to achieve an acceptable level of food safety at the least possible cost (efficiency objective) and facilitation of market access to the large and lucrative developed country food markets (market access objective), could follow the multilateral, regional, unilateral or the independent approach. The paper studying the pros and cons of these approaches aims to determine the most appropriate food safety reform package. It shows that the best approach is the unilateral. Under this approach the achievement of efficiency objective requires the adoption and implementation of the multilateral approach. The achievement of market access objective requires the adoption and implementation of the regulatory regime of the developed country whose markets the developing country is intending to penetrate. Instead, the paper proposes that the developing country adopts and implements the developed countries‘ regulatory regime only in agricultural sub-sectors with highest comparative advantage scores, and that in all other agricultural sub-sectors the country should adopt and implement the regulatory regime as developed by multilateral approach. Since the tasks associated with designing and implementing the food safety policy reform are challenging, the paper advocates that this task should be left to a new institution, the ‘Food Safety Council‘, which needs to be formed as an autonomous public institution with sufficient financial and technical resources

Liberalization of maritime freight transport services

Bilkent Universit