GROWTH CONSEQUENCES OF FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT: SOME RESULTS FOR TURKEY

Turkey has become the dominant recipient of FDI inflows in the Western Asian region. We explore if such inflows have promoted growth as expected. Our analysis of the FDI/growth nexus focuses both on the long-and short-run relations and allows for the possibility that growth also responds to other factors. The results support the theoretical priors and support the existence of a robust long-run relationship linking real economic growth with FDI inflows, economic openness and human capital. Among the three growth ingredients, only human capital accumulation (good education) appears capable of stimulating economic growth in the short-run as well. The results further imply that programs to attract larger FDI inflows to Turkey should persist for some time before they can produce noticeable economic benefits.FDI Inflows, Economic Growth, Human Capital, Turkey

Unbiased Estimation of the Half-Life to Price Index Convergence among US Cities

Cecchetti et al. (2002) estimate the half-life to price index convergence among U.S. cities to be approximately nine years. Although they correct for the small-sample bias in their panel estimate of the half-life, they do not adjust for biases that may potentially arise due to heterogeneity in the dynamic behavior of prices across cities, and time aggregation of price indices. This paper finds no evidence of significant heterogeneity in the dynamics of prices in different cities. However, corrected for the combined small-sample and time aggregation bias, the panel estimate of the half-life is found to be about seven years – two years shorter than the previous estimate.

Differential Bloch Oscillating Transistor Pair

We examine a Bloch Oscillating Transistor pair as a differential stage for cryogenic low-noise measurements. Using two oppositely biased, nearly symmetric Bloch Oscillating Transistors, we measured the sum and difference signals in the current gain and transconductance modes while changing the common mode signal, either voltage or current. From the common mode rejection ratio we find values $\sim 20$ dB even under non-optimal conditions. We also characterize the noise properties and obtain excellent noise performance for measurements having source impedances in the M$\Omega$ range.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure

Microwave Experiments and Noise in Mesoscopic Devices

This thesis is a compilation of several works in the area of condensed matter physics, and with devices based on superconducting Josephson junctions (JJ) as the common denominator for the presented projects apart from the work on diffusive systems. Microwave measurements were conducted on a Superconducting Cooper pair transistor to explore its current-phase relationship. Measurements on a JJ-based qubit coupled to a LC resonator revealed the vibronic transitions obeying the Franck-Condon principle. The main body of the thesis is the work done on the Bloch Oscillating Transistor (BOT), an ultra low noise quantum amplifier. In the present work, we investigated the dynamics of the BOT near the bifurcation threshold as well as implemented differential BOTs to check its capability to reject common mode signals. To account for our studies of quantum features in mesoscopic systems other than JJs, we performed an experiment similar to the Hanbury-Brown and Twiss interferometry in optics. For this mesoscopic interference experiment we selected a multiterminal diffusive system. We developed a low temperature noise measurement scheme to study current-current correlations in the GHz frequency range. In our experiments we found a small positive HBT exchange correction factor in the non-interacting limit at low bias voltage in the presence of quantum interference. We found negative exchange correction factor in the hot electron case for similar structures, which agrees well with the theory. Altogether, our experiments demonstrated the theoretically predicted HBT exchange effects in non-interacting and interacting regime of electron transport in a diffusive mesoscopic system