ABDURRAHMAN AYDEMIR
"Study of Economic Impact of ESSN Cash Transfers in Turkey" 2019-2020
"Gender Differences in Education in Turkey: Primary and Lower Secondary School Period and High School Transition", TUBITAK Research Grant, 2012-2015.
There are huge gender differences in educational attainment in Turkey. Existing studies in this context generally focus on gender differences in education levels of the adult population and analyze the related socioeconomic factors. Eliminating these differences requires an understanding of the factors that breed them and, in particular, an understanding of the stages of education when the differences between genders start emerging. This project’s goal is to analyze the gender differences at different stages of primary and high school education and the associated role of school and family related characteristics.
"The Impact of Integration Policies on Immigrant Outcomes: Cross-country Evidence from EU", European Union 7. Framework Program Marie Curie IRG, 2010-2013.
“The Impact of Ethnic Concentration on Human Capital Investments”, TÜBA, 2009 - 2012.
“Economic Outcomes of the First and Second Generation Turkish Immigrants in Europe: Cross Country and Across Time Variations”, TUBITAK Research Grant, 2008-2011.
This research will explore the labor market outcomes of the first generation Turkish immigrants, the schooling outcomes of the second generation and the intergenerational linkages across European countries. By providing an assessment of integration with a multi generational perspective the reasearch aims to inform discussions about the best practices for integration both at EU and national levels, and contribute to the discussions around the potential impacts of a free mobility of Turkish workers within the EU.
AHMET ALKAN
"A General Framework for Matching Problems using Artificial Intelligence", SU Internal Research Grant, 2018- 2019 with Esra Erdem.
AHMET ALKAN, ALPAY FILIZTEKIN, Ali Carkoglu and Fırat Inceoglu
“Measuring Value Added in Secondary Schooling in Turkey”, TUBITAK Research Project, 2005-2008.
Its aim is to quantify and disaggregate the educational achievements of students attending secondary schooling in Turkey. Students from various social, economic and educational backgrounds enroll in secondary schools and then graduate three or four years thereafter. Educational production functions are estimated by statistical regression analyses using data on nationwide exam scores to factor out the value added into several components including talent, motivation, socioeconomic status as well as level of school technology and class size. Furthermore, this approach enables a comparison of the performance of different schools and school types (e.g. science high schools, vocational schools). The findings of this project will have bearings on important educational policy issues such as improving the design of curricula and assessing the Turkish college admissions system, including a better understanding of the system’s impact on income distribution and the enormous waste of resources it currently entails.
EREN INCI
"Building Resilient Economic Agglomerations on Transportation and Health Effects: Urban Form, Location Choice and Transport Solutions for High Air Quality and Low-carbon Cities", TÜBİTAK 1001 / JPI Urban Europe Project, 2016 - 2019
“The Economic Analysis of Garage and Curbside Parking in Downtown Areas”, TUBITAK Career Grant, 2011.
TÜBİTAK Career Development Program will fund Eren İnci’s research project on downtown parking. The project, entitled “The Economic Analysis of Garage and Curbside Parking in Downtown Areas”, is among a few in the world in analyzing the interaction of garage and curbside parking between each other and with traffic flow. “Parking problem” significantly diminishes the quality of life in large cities in Turkey as much as it does all around the world. It will be felt even more in the future as a result of rapid urbanization and continuous increase in population and car ownership. In his project, Eren İnci is going to analyze the “parking problem” from an economic point of view and propose policy prescriptions.
HAKKI YAZICI
"Optimal Redistributive Taxation under Directed Technological Change", funding: TÜBİTAK 3501, 2015 - 2017
"Intergenerational Social Mobility and Its Determinants in Turkey", TUBITAK Research Program, 2012-2015.
Inequality of opportunity is one of the main reasons behind existence of socioeconomic inequalities in many societies. Measuring the level of inequality of opportunity and understanding its underlying causes are very important for social and economic policies that target equality of opportunity. Intergenerational social mobility measures the correlation of people's socioeconomic status with their parents, and thereby helps us to determine the level of inequality of opportunity in a society. This project has two main objectives. The first one is to measure the level of intergenerational social mobility in Turkey and how it has changed in the last few decades. The second objective is to analyze the factors that affect intergenerational mobility. To achieve these objectives, this project will analyze intergenerational mobility of educational and occupational status. The results of this project will contribute not only to the international literature on intergenerational mobility but also will provide guidance to social and economic policies that target equality of opportunity.
“Motivating Parents to Invest in Children”, Marie Curie Reintegration Grant, 2010-2013.
The project is motivated by the fact that raising children is an important productive activity for a society, for children's outcomes depend on their parents' investments. Hakki's research project will analyze ways in which governments can use traditional fiscal policy tools, such as taxation and the social security system, to provide parents with the right incentives to invest in their children. EU's 7th Framework Programme funds Hakkı's project for 3 years.
ISIK OZEL
"Europeanization beyond Europe: European Neighborhood Policy and Regulatory Reforms", funding: TÜBİTAK 2219, September 2015
“Regulation in Economic Governance”, TUBITAK Research Grant, 2009-2010.
Diffusion of regulation and the accompanying independent regulatory agencies is, now, a worldwide phenomenon, commonly referred to as “the rise of regulatory capitalism.” Despite such diffusion, however, quality of regulation shows significant cross-national and cross-sectoral variation. This project focuses on regulatory quality by carrying out a cross-sectoral analysis in Turkey. It examines the regulatory quality in three sectors – finance, energy and telecommunications – to understand economic, political and institutional determinants affecting regulatory quality. It analyzes the processes that bring about regulatory capture in certain sectors.
INCI GUMUS
“Macroeconomic Effects of Various Tax Policies in Periods of Financial Crisis", TUBITAK Research Program, 2012 - 2014.
This project quantitatively analyzes the effects of expansionary fiscal policy during financial crises in developing countries. Due to borrowing constraints, developing countries are unable to implement expansionary policies during crises. The project analyzes the effects of tax cuts that would have been possible, had the government been able to borrow more during a crisis. The model is applied to the Turkish economy and the effects of tax cuts are analyzed during the 2001 financial crisis in Turkey. The results of the analysis show how much of an expansion in output, consumption, labor and capital can be achieved through tax cuts on labor income tax, capital income tax and consumption tax. These results also show the costs of borrowing constraints faced by the economy. By reducing the tax rates and consequently increasing the foreign borrowing of the government by a certain amount, it is possible to see the effects that a borrowing decline imposes on the economy.
“The Effects of Foreign Currency Borrowing and Real Exchange Rates on Macroeconomic Fluctuations in Developing Countries”, TUBITAK Research Grant, 2011.
This project analyzes the effects of real exchange rate fluctuations on business cycles in developing countries in the presence of foreign currency borrowing. Developing countries almost exclusively borrow in foreign currency in international financial markets. With debt denominated in foreign currency and the resulting currency mismatch, real exchange rate fluctuations affect the real cost of borrowing. Since real exchange rate volatility is quite high in developing economies, fluctuations in the cost of borrowing increase considerably when borrowing is done in terms of foreign currency. Such volatility in the cost of borrowing affects the production, investment and employment decisions of firms, inducing volatility in these variables as well. The project will provide insights on how important real exchange rate fluctuations are in explaining macroeconomic volatility, and will contribute to the literature on the determinants of business cycles in developing countries.
“The Effects of the Exchange Rate Policy on Sovereign Default Risk in Developing Countries”, TUBITAK Research Grant, 2008-2010.
The borrowing costs of developing countries have been substantially higher than developed countries due to the premium paid for sovereign default risk. One of the factors that may affect the riskiness of a country as perceived by foreign investors is the exchange rate policy adopted by the country. This project aims to empirically analyze the effects of exchange rate policy on sovereign default risk in developing countries, differentiating the announced exchange rate regime and the actual exchange rate policy followed.
IZAK ATİYAS
"Company Productivity in Turkey: Evolution, Distribution and the Role of Deactivation in Factorial Distribution", TUBITAK, 2013-2014.
“Analysis of Competition Board Decisions: From a Law and Economics Perspective”, TUBITAK Research Grant, 2008-2010.
The goal of the project is to evaluate the decisions of the Competition Board in comparison to two benchmarks: norms of competition policy in the European Union and the concepts and methods of economic theory, especially industrial organization. The project will be executed with an interdisciplinary approach and the project group is composed of three economists and two legal scholars: Izak Atiyas, Toker Doğanoğlu and Ali Fırat İnceoğlu (Sabancı University), Gamze Öz (Middle East Technical University) and Gönenç Gürkaynak (ELIG Law Firm).
MUSTAFA OĞUZ AFACAN
"Optimal Mechanism Design with Transfers", funding: TÜBİTAK 1001 Research Grant
"A New Solution to the School Choice Problem", funding: TUBITAK 3501, 2014 - 2016
OZGUR KIBRIS
“The Effect of Bankruptcy Rules on Investment Behavior and Investor Welfare”, TUBITAK Research Grant, 2010-2011.
It is a project on Alternative bankruptcy rules affect the investment behavior in a country in different ways. In a way, each rule induces a different “noncooperative investment game” among the investors. Comparing the equilibria of these games, in terms of total investment and social welfare, might provide us ways of comparing alternative bankruptcy rules in a way that is not considered in the axiomatic literature. Using this methodology, the project explores a possible explanation as to the popularity of the proportional allocation rule in bankruptcy situations. The analysis contributes to the understanding of economic interactions in environments in which bankruptcy is probable. It also relates two strands of literature (the normative and the positive) which are about the same real-life phenomenon but which do not communicate with each other due to their alternative approaches and tools.
REMZİ KAYGUSUZ
“Households and the Welfare State”, TUBITAK Career Program, 2012-2014.
Social insurance policies are designed to support families who go through economic hardship. This project aims to evaluate implications of three common public policies on labor supply, allocations, and welfare. The focus will be on cash transfers to households with income below a threshold level, progressive income taxation, and childcare subsidies. The paper will build a general equilibrium model with heterogeneous two-earner and single-earner households who face idiosyncratic income shocks, where the members of the households make labor supply decisions along both intensive and extensive margins. The calibrated model will be consistent with observations on gender and skill premia, labor force participation of married females across skill groups, and the structure of marital sorting.
SELÇUK ÖZYURT
"A Mechanism Design and Cheap Talk Approach to Mediation", funding: H2020 Marie Sklodowska Curie Individual Fellowship, 2014-2015
“Advantages and Disadvantages of Building Reputation and Trust in Commercial Relations", TUBITAK Career Grant, 2012-2014.
This project aims to examine the effects of these two notions on market outcomes and analyze their advantages and disadvantages. Policy and market makers, who aim to design markets so that they operate more efficiently and effectively, can utilize the findings of this project. Under this main framework, the project aims to provide solutions, in a theoretical platform, for two specific problems.
“Reputation and Market Microstructure”, Marie Curie Reintegration Grant, 2010-2014.
The main motivation behind Selçuk’s project is to provide suggestive explanations regarding the effects of reputation (on commitment abilities) and negotiation on market microstructures and market outcomes. The project is funded for four years by the 7th research framework program of the EU.
