Mustafa Unver

Bu calisma, cari islemler dengesine cikti aciginin etkisini 27 ulkenin 1980–2013 donemi yillik verileri ile panel veri analizi yontemi kullanilarak aciklamaktadir. Bununla birlikte, calisma cari islemler dengesinin belirleyicilerini de analiz etmektedir. Analiz sonuclarina gore; cikti acigi ile cari islemler dengesi arasinda negatif yonlu guclu bir iliski elde edilmistir. Ayrica kamu sektoru butce dengesi, ticari aciklik, finansal aciklik, hisse senedi piyasalarinda bulunan firmalarin piyasa degeri, tasarruf orani ve kurumsal degiskenler cari islemler dengesi uzerinde istatistiksel olarak anlamli ve pozitif yonlu bir etkiye sahip olmustur. Diger taraftan; ozel sektore verilen yerli krediler, reel efektif doviz kuru ve bagimlilik oranlari cari islemler dengesi uzerinde istatistiksel olarak anlamli ve negatif yonlu bir etkiye neden olmaktadir.

Dunya ekonomilerinde yabanci sahipligi bankacilik sisteminde de kendini gostermistir. Istikrarli bir ekonomi icin guclu ve rekabetci bir bankacilik sistemi gereklidir. Gecis ekonomilerinin bankacilik sektorunun gelisiminde yabanci bankalar onemli bir rol oynamistir. Bu calisma; gecis ekonomilerinde sektorsel istihdam degiskenlerinin yabanci banka girislerine etkisini arastirmaktadir. Bu calismanin orijinalligi; yabanci banka girislerinin belirleyicilerinden olan istihdam degiskeninin sektorsel bicimde incelenmesidir. Bu cercevede yabanci banka girislerinin belirleyicileri arasinda; tarim, sanayi ve hizmetler sektoru istihdam buyumeleri calismanin modeline dâhil edilmistir. Calismada 27 gecis ekonomisinin 1990–2010 doneminde Panel Veri Analizi yapilmistir. Elde edilen sonuclara gore kontrol degiskenleri; sehirlesme buyume orani, toplam nufus buyume orani, kisi basina dusen kredi miktari ve dogrudan yabanci yatirimin GSYIH icindeki payi pozitif yonlu ve istatistiksel olarak anlamli sonuclar vermistir. Bununla birlikte; toplam krediler icindeki yerine getirilmeyen kredilerin payi ve enflasyon oranlari yabanci banka girisleri uzerinde negatif yonlu ve istatistiksel olarak anlamli sonuclar vermistir. Sadece doviz kurlari istatistiksel olarak anlamsiz sonuclar vermistir. Sektorsel istihdam degiskenleri dusunuldugunde ise; sanayi sektoru istihdam buyumesi ve hizmetler sektoru istihdam buyumesi degiskenlerinin yabanci banka girisleri uzerinde pozitif yonlu ve istatistiksel olarak anlamli bir etkisi bulunmustur. Diger taraftan; tarim sektoru istihdam degiskenlerinin yabanci banka girisleri uzerinde istatistiksel olarak anlamli bir etkisi bulunamamistir

This study explores short-run and long-run relationship between economic globalization and crop production in Turkiye by utilizing linear and nonlinear ARDL models for two distinct indicators of crop production. Based on linear and nonlinear ARDL bound tests, the relevant variables are co-integrated and hence they move together in the long run. Economic globalization and crop production possess statistically significant positive association in the long run in linear ARDL models. On the other hand, short-run and longrun symmetry test results disclose that the relationship of economic globalization and crop production in the short-run and long-run is asymmetric. According to the estimation findings, positive and negative changes in economic globalization augment crop production. Meanwhile several tests were conducted to check the statistical validity and robustness of our findings. The results of those diagnostic tests show that neither linear ARDL models nor nonlinear ARDL models inc...

This study analyzes the effect of usage of pirated software on poverty by using six prominent poverty indicators for the samples of developing and Latin America countries. The data utilized in models is out of balance and employ the period between 2003 and 2017. Our hypothesis asserts that increases in usage of pirated software diminish poverty in developing and Latin America countries. Firstly, univariate analyses are conducted, and the results of univariate analyses are demonstrated that there is a statistically significant opposite relationship between usage of pirated software and poverty in all six distinct poverty models. Secondly, three control variables (i.e., unemployment, health expenditure, and human capital) were included to our six poverty models to find out if the finding of univariate analyses retains its validity. The statistically significant reverse relationship between usage of pirated software and poverty remained the same after the inclusion of the three covaria...

W e e x a m i n e t h e r e l a t i o n s h i p b e t w e e n v a r i o u s i n d i c a t o r s o f f e m a l e l a b o r f o r c e p a r t i c i p a t i o n a n d l a b o r p r o d u c t i v i t y . W e t e s t t h e h y p o t h e s i s t h a t l a b o r p r o d u c t i v i t y b o o s t s a s t h e f e m a l e e m p l o y m e n t i n c r e a s e s b y e x p l o i t i n g a p a n e l d a t a s e t i n c l u d i n g t h e p e r i o d 1 9 8 5 t o 2 0 1 0 a n d 1 1 1 c o u n t r i e s a n d u s i n g t h r e e l a b o r p r o d u c t i v i t y i n d i c a t o r s a n d t h r e e f e m a l e l a b o r f o r c e p a r t i c i p a t i o n i n d i c a t o r s . W e i d e n t i f i e d a p o s i t i v e c o r r e l a t i o n b e t w e e n f e m a l e l a b o r f o r c e p a r t i c i p a t i o n i n d i c a t o r s a n d l a b o r p r o d u c t i v i t y . T h i s f i n d i n g is s t a t i s t i c a l l y s i g n i f i c a n t a n d v a l i d f o r t h r e e d i f f e r e n t p r o d u c ...

Foreign ownership has standed out in banking sectors of world economies. Substantial and competitive banking system is required for a stable economy. Foreign banks have played an important role in development of banking sector in transition economies. This paper investigates the effects of sectoral growth variables on foreign bank entries in transition economies. This paper’s difference is to search sectoral determinants of foreign bank entries for sectorel Gross Domestic Product (GDP) variables. In this context, paper has two main models that include agriculture, industry and service sectors of GDP as determinants of foreign bank entries. This study uses Panel Data Analysis for 1990–2010 period in 27 transition economies. According to results, control variables that are total population growth rate, credit per capita and the ratio of foreign direct investment to GDP have been shown to be positevly and statistically significant related to foreign bank entries. On the other hand, the...

This study aims to analyze asymmetric association between economic growth rate and growth rate of imported goods and services in Turkey for the periods of 1988-2019 by using the Nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed Lag (NARDL) model and two distinct indicators of economic growth rate. According to the estimation results, there exists a nonlinear cointegration relationship between economic growth rate and growth rate of imports. NARDL (2,2) model is estimated to determine the presence of any asymmetric link in short-run/long-run. We identified an asymmetric relationship between the series in the long-run but not in the short-run. Estimation findings of the first model disclose that a rise in growth rate of imports by 1% causes a rise in economic growth rate by 0.606% while a decrease in growth rate of imports by 1% leads to a drop in economic growth rate by 0.565%. On the other hand, according to the estimation results of the second model, a jump in growth rate of imports by 1% cause...

This paper empirically tries to examine whether total natural resource rents have effects on political stability across seven different regional groups by utilizing an unbalanced sample containing 158 countries for the period of 1990-2017 in the largest sense. These seven groups are the entire sample, developing countries, OECD countries, East Asian and Pacific countries, Latin American and Caribbean countries, Sub-Saharan countries, and African countries. We also included four more determinants of political stability in our models, which are GDP per capita, democracy, total population, and trade openness levels, in light of the studies in political stability literature. Our results show that an increase in the share of total natural resource rents leads to a decrease in political stability. In addition, this paper also determines that there are significantly positive effects of GDP per capita and democracy levels on political stability in all regions while total population level ge...

Globalization may have various effects in both positive and negative contexts in an economy. By letting a country to reach more advanced technologies and production methods, globalization can augment an economy’s productivity level. Therefore, this study examines the role of globalization on labor productivity in both short-run and long-run. In order to analyze this association, we empirically investigate if there is a long-run relationship between globalization and labor productivity by using a balanced panel data of 34 OECD countries for the years from 2002 to 2012. Panel cointegration test results disclose that globalization and labor productivity are positively related to each other and this relationship is statistically significant in both short-run and long-run. According to the estimation results, if globalization index value goes up by 1% then labor productivity increases by 0.83% in the long-run while this figure is by 0.44% in the short-run.  Also, we could not find any ca...

Dunya ekonomilerinde yabanci sahipligi bankacilik sisteminde de kendini gostermistir. Istikrarli bir ekonomi icin guclu ve rekabetci bir bankacilik sistemi gereklidir. Gecis ekonomilerinin bankacilik sektorunun gelisiminde yabanci bankalar onemli bir rol oynamistir. Bu calisma; gecis ekonomilerinde sektorsel istihdam degiskenlerinin yabanci banka girislerine etkisini arastirmaktadir. Bu calismanin orijinalligi; yabanci banka girislerinin belirleyicilerinden olan istihdam degiskeninin sektorsel bicimde incelenmesidir. Bu cercevede yabanci banka girislerinin belirleyicileri arasinda; tarim, sanayi ve hizmetler sektoru istihdam buyumeleri calismanin modeline dâhil edilmistir. Calismada 27 gecis ekonomisinin 1990–2010 doneminde Panel Veri Analizi yapilmistir. Elde edilen sonuclara gore kontrol degiskenleri; sehirlesme buyume orani, toplam nufus buyume orani, kisi basina dusen kredi miktari ve dogrudan yabanci yatirimin GSYIH icindeki payi pozitif yonlu ve istatistiksel olarak anlamli so...

Özet: Bu çalışma; suç ve suç bileşenlerinin, ekonomi biliminin temel araçlarıyla analizini amaçlamaktadır. Bu amaca ulaşmada, suçun ekonomik modellerinden yararlanılmıştır. Mevcut literatür temelinde hazırlanan çalışmada suç arzına ve talebine, suçun ekonomik ...

Abstract. This paper examines the effect of poverty on corruption using annual unbalanced panel data analysis on 154 countries from 2000 to 2013. In the models, we use corruption measures from three alternative sources as a dependent variable while independent variables are five different poverty measures. In addition, this study has some control variables, such as foreign direct investment (FDI), trade openness, inflation rate and democracy level. According to empirical results, all poverty variables and inflation rates have statistically significant and positive effects on corruption, while FDI, trade openness and democracy levels have statistically significant and negative effects. Keywords. Poverty, Corruption, Inflation, FDI, Democracy. JEL. O15, K42, E31, D72.

ÖZET: Bu çalışma, cari işlemler dengesine çıktı açığının etkisini 27 ülkenin 1980-2013 dönemi yıllık verileri ile panel veri analizi yöntemi kullanılarak açıklamaktadır. Bununla birlikte, çalışma cari işlemler dengesinin belirleyicilerini de analiz etmektedir. Analiz sonuçlarına göre; çıktı açığı ile cari işlemler dengesi arasında negatif yönlü güçlü bir ilişki elde edilmiştir. Ayrıca kamu sektörü bütçe dengesi, ticari açıklık, finansal açıklık, hisse senedi piyasalarında bulunan firmaların piyasa değeri, tasarruf oranı ve kurumsal değişkenler cari işlemler dengesi üzerinde istatistiksel olarak anlamlı ve pozitif yönlü bir etkiye sahip olmuştur. Diğer taraftan; özel sektöre verilen yerli krediler, reel efektif döviz kuru ve bağımlılık oranları cari işlemler dengesi üzerinde istatistiksel olarak anlamlı ve negatif yönlü bir etkiye neden olmaktadır. ABSTRACT: This paper examines the impact of output gap on current account balance for 27 countries over 1980-2013 period, using panel dat...

ÖZET: Bu çalışma, cari işlemler dengesine çıktı açığının etkisini 27 ülkenin 1980-2013 dönemi yıllık verileri ile panel veri analizi yöntemi kullanılarak açıklamaktadır. Bununla birlikte, çalışma cari işlemler dengesinin belirleyicilerini de analiz etmektedir. Analiz sonuçlarına göre; çıktı açığı ile cari işlemler dengesi arasında negatif yönlü güçlü bir ilişki elde edilmiştir. Ayrıca kamu sektörü bütçe dengesi, ticari açıklık, finansal açıklık, hisse senedi piyasalarında bulunan firmaların piyasa değeri, tasarruf oranı ve kurumsal değişkenler cari işlemler dengesi üzerinde istatistiksel olarak anlamlı ve pozitif yönlü bir etkiye sahip olmuştur. Diğer taraftan; özel sektöre verilen yerli krediler, reel efektif döviz kuru ve bağımlılık oranları cari işlemler dengesi üzerinde istatistiksel olarak anlamlı ve negatif yönlü bir etkiye neden olmaktadır. ABSTRACT: This paper examines the impact of output gap on current account balance for 27 countries over 1980-2013 period, using panel dat...

The purpose of this study is to examine the causal linkage between military expenditures and economic growth in 27 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member countries. Different periods are studied due to the unavailability of data for the common period for all countries. Both the symmetric and the asymmetric causality between military expenditures and economic growth are investigated under cross-sectional dependence and panel heterogeneity by using the bootstrap panel Granger causality testing approach. The results indicate that there is both symmetric and asymmetric Granger- causality between military expenditures and economic growth, which vary from one country to another. The robust empirical findings support the military expenditures and economic growth nexus in 12 of the 27 NATO member countries. Moreover, the findings show that more empirical evidence between military expenditures and economic growth can be obtained when the asymmetric causality is considered, in addit...

FDI plays a crucial role in the economic development of countries which are suffering from lack of financial resource, advanced technology and skill. Countries compete with each other to attract more FDI. FDI may prefer to enter into those countries which have advanced and widespread infrastructure network. Hence in this study we investigate the association between infrastructure and FDI in the context of transition economies by using six distinct infrastructure proxies. The data used in the analyses are unbalanced data covering 25 countries for the years between 1990 and 2014. The estimation results of the study show that infrastructure has a positive statistically significant impact on FDI inflows. This finding remains valid across six different infrastructure indicators and shows that infrastructure level of a country is quite important in the determination of amount of FDI that it attracts.

Corruption has been one of the most debated issues in the social science literature for decades. It has negative outcomes in economics such as: reducing private sector investments, tax revenue, economic growth and development; deterring foreign direct investments; causing misallocation of sparse resources; lowering the resources allocated for infrastructure, public services and anti-poverty programs; deteriorating environmental quality etc... Moreover, it may weaken political stability and democracy of a country. Because of its destructive effects, there are ample studies in the literature trying to identify determinants of corruption. Besides the already identified determinants of corruption (e.g., trade openness, bureaucratic inefficiency, rule of law, political rights, religion, democracy, freedom, political stability, poverty, education etc.), globalization level of a country may also affect corruption level in that particular country. Hence in this study we analyze the impact o...

This paper makes an empirical investigation of the determinants of fragility in terms of long-term fiscal sustainability and sovereign ratings for Brazil, India, Indonesia, South Africa and Turkey, referred to as the “fragile five” by Morgan Stanley (2013), using the Fully Modified Ordinary Least Square (FMOLS) approach developed by Phillips and Hansen (1990). The dataset covers the 1980–2012 period for fiscal sustainability and 1990–2012 for sovereign ratings in these countries. The study revealed a statistically significant relationship between fiscal sustainability and current account balance, gross domestic product (GDP), total reserves, energy imports, exchange rate, external debt and credit to the private sector, while the findings associated with sovereign ratings demonstrate significantly that the leading determinants of sovereign ratings are exchange rates, total reserves, energy imports, foreign direct investment (FDI) net inflows, current account balance, GDP and external...

In this paper we investigate the long-running association between investments and imports in Turkey using a dataset covering the 1980–2019 period, and employing the ARDL estimation technique. As a developing country, Turkey’s economic growth relies on the import of raw materials and intermediate goods, and so the main hypothesis of this study claims that increases in investments lead to increases in imports in the long term in Turkey. The results of co-integration ARDL bounds tests show the series of imports and investments to be co-integrated, while long-term coefficient estimations reveal a positive and statistically significant relationship between import and investment series, and that a 1% increase in investments leads to a 0.1673% increase in imports in the long term in Turkey. Furthermore, diagnostic tests reveal the estimated model to have problems in terms of autocorrelation, heteroscedasticity, normality and model specification.

This study examined causality association and short-and long-term relationship between investments and exports in Turkey for the period of 1980-2019. After detecting that series of investment and export are stationary at first differences based on KPSS stationarity test, a cointegration test was implemented by employing the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bound test, the results of which disclosed that investments and exports in Turkey are co-integrated and move together over the long-term. The long-term coefficient estimation findings showed that investments positively and statistically significantly affect exports over the long-term. In other words, an increase in the investment level by 1% induced increase in the export level by 0.13% over the long-term. Meantime the estimated model had no problems with regard to autocorrelation, heteroscedasticity, normality, and model specification. Finally, the causality test results indicated that there was only a one-way causality relationship running from the investments to the exports.

The purpose of this study is to examine the causal linkage between military expenditures and economic growth in 27 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member countries. Different periods are studied due to the unavailability of data for the common period for all countries. Both the symmetric and the asymmetric causality between military expenditures and economic growth are investigated under cross-sectional dependence and panel heterogeneity by using the bootstrap panel Granger causality testing approach. The results indicate that there is both symmetric and asymmetric Granger-causality between military expenditures and economic growth, which vary from one country to another. The robust empirical findings support the military expenditures and economic growth nexus in 12 of the 27 NATO member countries. Moreover, the findings show that more empirical evidence between military expenditures and economic growth can be obtained when the asymmetric causality is considered, in addition to the symmetric causality.

This study aims to analyze asymmetric association between economic growth rate and growth rate of imported goods and services in Turkey for the periods of 1988-2019 by using the Nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed Lag (NARDL) model and two distinct indicators of economic growth rate. According to the estimation results, there exists a nonlinear cointegration relationship between economic growth rate and growth rate of imports. NARDL (2,2) model is estimated to determine the presence of any asymmetric link in short-run/long-run. We identified an asymmetric relationship between the series in the long-run but not in the short-run. Estimation findings of the first model disclose that a rise in growth rate of imports by 1% causes a rise in economic growth rate by 0.606% while a decrease in growth rate of imports by 1% leads to a drop in economic growth rate by 0.565%. On the other hand, according to the estimation results of the second model, a jump in growth rate of imports by 1% causes to an increase in economic growth rate by 0.574% whereas a drop in growth rate of imports by 1% leads to a decrease in economic growth rate by 0.535%. Also model diagnostic tests imply that the model do not contain autocorrelation, heteroscedasticity, model misspecification and non-normality problems.

This paper empirically tries to examine whether total natural resource rents have effects on political stability across seven different regional groups by utilizing an unbalanced sample containing 158 countries for the period of 1990-2017 in the largest sense. These seven groups are the entire sample, developing countries, OECD countries, East Asian and Pacific countries, Latin American and Caribbean countries, Sub-Saharan countries, and African countries. We also included four more determinants of political stability in our models, which are GDP per capita, democracy, total population, and trade openness levels, in light of the studies in political stability literature. Our results show that an increase in the share of total natural resource rents leads to a decrease in political stability. In addition, this paper also determines that there are significantly positive effects of GDP per capita and democracy levels on political stability in all regions while total population level generally has a negative and statistically significant effect on political stability. Besides, as to the estimation results, trade openness positively and significantly affects political stability almost in all models.

Globalization may have various effects in both positive and negative contexts in an economy. By letting a country to reach more advanced technologies and production methods, globalization can augment an economy’s productivity level. Therefore, this study examines the role of globalization on labor productivity in both short-run and long-run. In order to analyze this association, we empirically investigate if there is a long-run relationship between globalization and labor productivity by using a balanced panel data of 34 OECD countries for the years from 2002 to 2012. Panel cointegration test results disclose that globalization and labor productivity are positively related to each other and this relationship is statistically significant in both short-run and long-run. According to the estimation results, if globalization index value goes up by 1% then labor productivity increases by 0.83% in the long-run while this figure is by 0.44% in the short-run. Also, we could not find any causality association between globalization and labor productivity as a result of panel causality test.

FDI plays a crucial role in the economic development of countries which are suffering from lack of financial resource, advanced technology and skill. Countries compete with each other to attract more FDI. FDI may prefer to enter into those countries which have advanced and widespread infrastructure network. Hence in this study we investigate the association between infrastructure and FDI in the context of transition economies by using six distinct infrastructure proxies. The data used in the analyses are unbalanced data covering 25 countries for the years between 1990 and 2014. The estimation results of the study show that infrastructure has a positive statistically significant impact on FDI inflows. This finding remains valid across six different infrastructure indicators and shows that infrastructure level of a country is quite important in the determination of amount of FDI that it attracts.

Corruption has been one of the most debated issues in the social science literature for decades. It has negative outcomes in economics such as: reducing private sector investments, tax revenue, economic growth and development; deterring foreign direct investments; causing misallocation of sparse resources; lowering the resources allocated for infrastructure, public services and anti-poverty programs; deteriorating environmental quality etc... Moreover, it may weaken political stability and democracy of a country. Because of its destructive effects, there are ample studies in the literature trying to identify determinants of corruption. Besides the already identified
determinants of corruption (e.g., trade openness, bureaucratic inefficiency, rule of law, political rights, religion, democracy, freedom, political stability, poverty, education etc.), globalization level of a country may also affect corruption level in that particular country. Hence in this study we analyze the impact of globalization (i.e., over all globalization, economic globalization, social globalization, and political globalization) on corruption in a panel framework for African countries. Our results imply that over all
globalization, economic globalization, and social globalization reduce corrupt activities in an economy.

Bu çalışmanın amacı, yedi Türk Cumhuriyeti (Türkiye, Azerbaycan, Kazakistan, Türkmenistan, Kırgızistan, Tacikistan ve Özbekistan) özelinde hükümet kalitesinin ve kamu sektörü büyüklüğünün ekonomik büyüme üzerindeki etkisini araştırmaktır. 2002-2015 dönemini kapsayan analizde değişkenler arasındaki ilişkiler panel görünürde ilişkisiz regresyon (Panel SUR) yöntemi ile tahmin edilmiştir. Elde edilen bulgulara göre, hükümet kalitesinin ekonomik büyüme üzerindeki etkisi, Türkiye Azerbaycan, Kazakistan ve Özbekistan’da istatistiki olarak anlamlı ve pozitif, Türkmenistan, Kırgızistan ve Tacikistan’da ise pozitif olmakla birlikte anlamsızdır. Analiz sonuçlarına göre ayrıca, kamu sektörü büyüklüğünün ekonomik büyüme üzerindeki etkisi Türkiye’de negatif iken, diğer Türk cumhuriyetlerinde ise pozitiftir. Bu sonuçlardan hareketle, altı Türk cumhuriyetinde piyasa ekonomisine geçiş süreci ve sürdürülebilir büyümenin, devletin dönüşümüyle birlikte yürütülmesi gerektiği, Türkiye için ise hükümet kalitesini arttırıcı reformların daha sağlıklı devlet-piyasa uyumu ile desteklenmesi gerektiği iddia edilebilir

Bu çalışma, yolsuzluğun seçilmiş belirleyicilerini (vergi yükü, enflasyon oranı, ekonomik büyüme oranı, insani gelişmişlik düzeyi ve ekonomik özgürlük) teorik ve ampirik kapsamda incelemeyi amaçlamaktadır. Bu bağlamda çalışma, Kırılgan Sekizli ülkeler (Arjantin, Brezilya, Endonezya, Güney Afrika, Hindistan, Rusya, Şili ve Türkiye) için 2002-2014 dönemi yıllık verilerini kullanarak panel eş-bütünleşme analizini kullanmaktadır. Analiz sonuçlarına göre; vergi yükü ve enflasyon oranlarının yolsuzluk üzerinde istatistiksel olarak anlamlı ve pozitif bir etkisi olduğu sonucuna ulaşılmıştır. Diğer taraftan; ekonomik büyüme oranı, insani gelişmişlik düzeyi ve ekonomik özgürlüklerin yolsuzluk üzerinde istatistiksel olarak anlamlı ve negatif bir etkisi olduğu sonucuna ulaşılmıştır.

In recent years, there have been great interest for solving corruption problems associated with public and private sector. On the other hand, nowadays the rapid development of technology related to transformation in the ICT technologies is observed from many sources in the literature. In this process, implementations of anticorruption policies have been helped by these technologies. In addition to this support, the empirical analyses on relationships between ICT and corruption are still scarce. In this regard, this paper focuses whether ICT technologies reduces corruption, adopting univariate and multivariate models with panel data in 177 countries for the period 2002-2012. It assumes that developments in ICT technologies of countries determine greatly their level of corruption in terms of public institutions. Moreover, we employ four ICT indicators, including internet, cell phone, computer and fixed broadband and two corruption indexes. The results indicate that all of these technologies cause a decrease in the two corruption indexes. On the other hand, we also include four more instrumental variables to check the robust of our models. In this regard, the results showed that trade openness and FDI have a negative and statistically significant relationship with the corruption while poverty and inflation have a positive, statistically significant effect on the corruption.

This paper examines the effect of poverty on corruption using annual unbalanced panel data analysis on 154 countries from 2000 to 2013. In the models, we use corruption measures from three alternative sources as a dependent variable while independent variables are five different poverty measures. In addition, this study has some control variables, such as foreign direct investment (FDI), trade openness, inflation rate and democracy level. According to empirical results, all poverty variables and inflation rates have statistically significant and positive effects on corruption, while FDI, trade openness and democracy levels have statistically significant and negative effects.

In this study, we explore the impact of ICT penetration on tax revenue. We test the hypothesis that ICT penetration contributes to increase in tax revenue by examining an unbalanced panel data set including the period 1990 to 2013 and using four ICT penetration indicators and three tax revenue indicators. Our largest sample includes 157 countries. We identified highly statistically significant positive correlation between ICT penetration and tax revenue by using univariate and multivari-ate time effect models. This finding is statistically significant and valid for four ICT penetration indicators and three tax revenue indicators. Our results suggest that ICT penetration increases tax revenue across countries between 1990 and 2013, controlling for other factors that may contribute to increase in tax revenue.

Bu çalışmada, Bilgi İşlem Teknolojileri (BİT) kullanımının yaygınlaşmasının vergi geliri üzerindeki etkisi araştırılmıştır. Bilgi İşlem Teknolojileri (BİT) kulla-nımının yaygınlaşmasının ülke vergi gelirinin artma-sına katkı sağlayacağı hipotezi 1990-2013 dönemini kapsayan dengesiz panel veri, dört BİT penetrasyon göstergesi ve üç ülke vergi geliri göstergesi kullanılarak test edilmiştir. Çalışmanın en büyük örnekleminde 157 ülke vardır. Tek ve çok değişkenli zaman etkisi model-leri kullanılarak BİT penetrasyonu ve ülke vergi geliri arasında istatistiksel olarak anlamlı pozitif korelasyon tespit edilmiştir. Bu bulgu, dört BİT penetrasyon gös-tergesi ve üç vergi geliri göstergesi için de istatistiksel olarak anlamlı ve geçerli bulunmuştur. Ülkeler arası araştırma sonuçlarımız, ülke vergi gelirlerinin artışına etki eden diğer faktörlerin kontrol altında tutulması koşulları altında, BİT kullanımının yaygınlaşmasının ülke vergi gelirlerinin artmasına katkı sağlayacağını göstermektedir.

We examine the relationship between various indicators of female labor force participation and labor productivity. We test the hypothesis that labor productivity boosts as the female employment increases by exploiting a panel data set including the period 1985 to 2010 and 111 countries and using three labor productivity indicators and three female labor force participation indicators. We identified a positive correlation between female labor force participation indicators and labor productivity. This finding is statistically significant and valid for three different productivity indicators and three different female labor force participation indicators. Thus, the results suggest that female labor force participation increases labor productivity, controlling for other factors that may contribute to labor productivity.

This paper makes an empirical investigation of the determinants of fragility in terms of long-term fiscal sustainability and sovereign ratings for Brazil, India, Indonesia, South Africa and Turkey, referred to as the " fragile five " by Morgan Stanley (2013), using the Fully Modified Ordinary Least Square (FMOLS) approach developed by Phillips and Hansen (1990). The data set covers the 1980–2012 period for fiscal sustainability and 1990–2012 for sovereign ratings in these countries. The study revealed a statistically significant relationship between fiscal sustainability and current account balance, gross domestic product (GDP), total reserves, energy imports, exchange rate, external debt and credit to the private sector, while the findings associated with sovereign ratings demonstrate significantly that the leading determinants of sovereign ratings are exchange rates, total reserves, energy imports, foreign direct investment (FDI) net inflows, current account balance, GDP and external debt stocks.

This  paper  examines  the  determinants  of  foreign  direct  investment  (FDI)  for  88  countries  in  the  1985–2011  period,  using  a  static  and  dynamic  panel  data  analysis.  The  results  show  that  urbanization  rate,  the  ratio  of  population  over  the  age  of  65,  social  security  spending  and  health  spending  have  a  negative  and  statistically  significant  impact  on  FDI,  while  per  capita  GDP,  GDP  growth,  market  size,  inflation  rate,  unemployment  rate,  labor  force  growth,  credit  to  private  sector,  market  capitalization  and  control  of  corruption  have  a  statistically  significant positive impact on FDI inflows. In addition, financial openness and energy imports to the host nation have both statistically significant negative and positive impacts on FDI inflows.

ÖZET: Bu çalışma, cari işlemler dengesine çıktı açığının etkisini 27 ülkenin 1980–2013 dönemi yıllık verileri ile panel veri analizi yöntemi kullanılarak açıklamaktadır. Bununla birlikte, çalışma cari işlemler dengesinin belirleyicilerini de analiz etmektedir. Analiz sonuçlarına göre; çıktı açığı ile cari işlemler dengesi arasında negatif yönlü güçlü bir ilişki elde edilmiştir. Ayrıca kamu sektörü bütçe dengesi, ticari açıklık, finansal açıklık, hisse senedi piyasalarında bulunan firmaların piyasa değeri, tasarruf oranı ve kurumsal değişkenler cari işlemler dengesi üzerinde istatistiksel olarak anlamlı ve pozitif yönlü bir etkiye sahip olmuştur. Diğer taraftan; özel sektöre verilen yerli krediler, reel efektif döviz kuru ve bağımlılık oranları cari işlemler dengesi üzerinde istatistiksel olarak anlamlı ve negatif yönlü bir etkiye neden olmaktadır. ABSTRACT: This paper examines the impact of output gap on current account balance for 27 countries over 1980–2013 period, using panel data analysis. The paper analyses also the determinants of current account balance. We find that current account balance is negatively correlated with output gap. However, the findings associated with public budget balance, trade openness, financial openness, market capitalization, saving ratio, institutional variables show that there are statistically significant and positive effects on the current account balance. On the other hand, domestic credits to private sector, real effective exchange rate and dependency ratios have statistically significant and negative effect on current account balance.

ÖZ Bu çalışma, denizyolu taşımacılığı bağlantılılık düzeyinin ekonomilerin ihracat düzeyine etkisini araştırmaktadır. Çalışmada bu ilişki, 100 ülkenin bölgesel ve gelir düzeylerine göre ayrıştırılmış farklı ülke grupları için 2004–2014 dönemi yıllık verileri ile dengesiz panel veri analizi yöntemi kullanılarak tahmin edilmiştir. Bağımlı değişken olarak; ülkelerin Doğu Asya ve Pasifik bölgesinde bulunan gelişmekte olan ekonomilere gerçekleştirdiği ihracat kullanılmıştır. Diğer taraftan; modellerdeki bağımsız değişkenler sırasıyla denizyolu taşımacılık bağlantılılık endeksi, doğrudan yabancı sermaye yatırımları, kişi başına GSYH ve döviz kuru değişkeni olarak ifade edilebilir. Çalışmanın bölgesel ülke gruplarının analiz sonuçlarına göre; Avrupa Birliği, Avrupa ve Merkezi Asya, Latin Amerika ve Karayip, Afrika ve Ortadoğu ve Kuzey Afrika bölgelerinin denizyolu taşımacılık bağlantılılık endeksi seviyelerinin bağımlı değişken üzerinde pozitif yönlü ve istatistiksel olarak anlamlı bir etkisi bulunmuştur. Avrupa Birliği ve Avrupa ve Merkezi Asya bölgelerinde doğrudan yabancı sermaye yatırımlarının bağımlı değişken üzerinde negatif ve istatistiksel olarak anlamlı bir etkisi bulunmuştur. Diğer taraftan; Latin Amerika ve Karayip ve Afrika bölgelerinde doğrudan yabancı sermaye yatırımları değişkeninin bağımlı değişken üzerinde pozitif yönlü ve istatistiksel olarak anlamlı bir etkisi bulunmuştur. Avrupa Birliği ve Ortadoğu ve Kuzey Afrika bölgelerinde kişi başına düşen GSYH'nın bağımlı değişken üzerinde pozitif yönlü ve istatistiksel olarak anlamlı bir etkisi bulunmuştur. Döviz kuru değişkeninin ise; Arab ülkelerinde bağımlı değişken üzerinde negatif yönlü ve istatistiksel olarak anlamlı bir etkiye sahipken, Afrika ve Ortadoğu ve Kuzey Afrika bölgelerinde pozitif yönlü ve istatistiksel olarak anlamlı bir etkisi bulunmuştur. Çalışmanın gelir düzeyleri için ülke gruplarının analiz sonuçlarına göre ise; denizyolu taşımacılık bağlantılılık endeksi ve kişi başına düşen GSYH değişkenleri tüm gelir düzeylerindeki ülke gruplarında bağımlı değişken üzerinde pozitif yönlü ve istatistiksel olarak anlamlı bir etkiye sahip olmuştur. Bununla birlikte; orta gelirli ülke ve düşük ve orta gelirli ülke gruplarında doğrudan yabancı sermaye yatırımlarının bağımlı değişken üzerinde pozitif yönlü ve istatistiksel olarak anlamlı bir etkisi bulunmuştur. Son olarak; orta gelirli, üst orta gelirli, düşük ve orta gelirli ve düşük gelirli ülke gruplarında döviz kuru değişkeni bağımlı değişken üzerinde pozitif yönlü ve istatistiksel olarak anlamlı bir etkiye sahip olmuştur. ABSTRACT This paper investigates the impact of liner shipping connectivity level on economies' export levels. This relationship in paper is estimated unbalance panel data method for 2004–2014 periods in 100 countries including different country groups with regional and income level. It uses exports to developing economies in East Asia and Pacific as a dependent variable. On the other hand, liner shipping connectivity index, foreign direct investment, GDP per capita and exchange rate variables are included as independent variables in models. According to analysis results for regional country groups, liner shipping connectivity index levels of European Union, Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and Caribbean, Africa and Middle East and North Africa regions have been positively and statistically significant impacts on dependent variable. Also, foreign direct investment has positively and statistically significant impacts in Latin America and Caribbean, and Africa while there are negative and statistically significant impacts of foreign direct investment in European Union and, Europe and Central Asia regions. GDP per capita in European Union and, Middle East and North Africa regions have positively and statistically significant impacts on dependent variable. Finally, exchange rate has negatively and statistically significant impact in Arab countries group while there are positive and statistically significant impacts in Africa and, Middle East and North Africa regions. According to analysis results for country groups with income level, liner shipping connectivity index and GDP per capita have positively and statistically significant impacts in all income levels. Also, foreign direct investments have positively and statistically significant impacts in middle income and, low and middle income countries. Finally, exchange rate has positively significant impact in middle income, upper middle income, low and middle income and low income country groups.

This paper examines the effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) on different types of social spending (i.e., education, health, and social security) by using fixed effect panel data from the 1995-2011 period. It also presents empirical data from 88 countries by comparing eight regional and economic level country groups, including Asia, Euro, Latin, Developing, Middle income, OECD and Transition economies. The results shows that while FDI inflows have a statistically significant negative effect on education spending in only the Asian Economies, there is a statistically significant negative effect of FDI inflows on health spending in the Euro, OECD and Transition economies, for which the Latin economies show positive and significant results. On the other hand, FDI inflows are also found to have some implications on social security spending that are negative and statistically significant in Developing, MINC and OECD economies in contrast to the statistically significant but positive effect seen in the Latin economies.

ÖZ Dünya ekonomilerinde yabancı sahipliği bankacılık sisteminde de kendini göstermiştir. İstikrarlı bir ekonomi için güçlü ve rekabetçi bir bankacılık sistemi gereklidir. Geçiş ekonomilerinin bankacılık sektörünün gelişiminde yabancı bankalar önemli bir rol almıştır. Bu çalışma; geçiş ekonomilerinde sektörel büyüme değişkenlerinin yabancı banka girişlerine etkisini araştırmaktadır. Bu çalışmanın farkı; yabancı banka girişlerinin belirleyicilerinden olan Gayri Safi Yurtiçi Hâsıla (GSYİH) değişkeninin sektörel biçimde incelenmesidir. Bu çerçevede yabancı banka girişlerinin belirleyicileri arasında; tarım, sanayi ve hizmetler sektörü GSYİH büyüme değişkenleri modele dâhil edilmiştir. Çalışmada 27 geçiş ekonomisinin 1990–2010 döneminde Panel Veri Analizi yapılmıştır. Elde edilen sonuçlara göre kontrol değişkenleri; toplam nüfus büyüme oranı, kişi başına düşen kredi miktarı ve doğrudan yabancı yatırımın GSYİH içindeki payı pozitif yönlü ve istatistiksel olarak anlamlı sonuçlar vermiştir. Bununla birlikte; toplam krediler içindeki yerine getirilmeyen kredilerin payı ve enflasyon oranları yabancı banka girişleri üzerinde negatif yönlü ve istatistiksel olarak anlamlı sonuçlar vermiştir. Sadece döviz kurları istatistiksel olarak anlamsız sonuçlar vermiştir. Sanayi sektörü GSYİH büyümesi, hizmetler sektörü GSYİH büyümesi değişkenlerinin yabancı banka girişleri üzerinde pozitif yönlü ve istatistiksel olarak anlamlı bir etkisi bulunmuştur. Diğer taraftan; tarım sektörü GSYİH büyümesi değişkeninin yabancı banka girişleri üzerinde istatistiksel olarak anlamlı bir etkisi bulunamamıştır. ABSTRACT Foreign ownership has standed out in banking sectors of world economies. Substantial and competitive banking system is required for a stable economy. Foreign banks have played an important role in development of banking sector in transition economies. This paper investigates the effects of sectoral growth variables on foreign bank entries in transition economies. This paper's difference is to search sectoral determinants of foreign bank entries for sectorel Gross Domestic Product (GDP) variables. In this context, paper has two main models that include agriculture, industry and service sectors of GDP as determinants of foreign bank entries. This study uses Panel Data Analysis for 1990–2010 period in 27 transition economies. According to results, control variables that are total population growth rate, credit per capita and the ratio of foreign direct investment to GDP have been shown to be positevly and statistically significant related to foreign bank entries. On the other hand, the ratio of non-performing loans to total loans and inflation rates have significantly negative sign on foreign bank entries. Exchange rates is only found statistically insignificant among all control variables. GDP growth of industry sector, GDP growth of service sector, have had a significantly positive impact on foreign bank entries. Conversely, GDP growth of agriculture sector haven't been a significantly effect on foreign bank entries.

The literature contains abundant studies empirically and theoretically discussing the factors affecting level of inflation prevailing in a particular country. One of these factors is the usage of information and communication technology (ICT) which is represented by different indicators (e.g., computer use, internet use, cellular phone subscription, fixed broad band etc.) in empirical analyses. In this study we investigate the role of internet use on inflation by using five distinct inflation indicators and our sample is constituted by an unbalanced data for OECD countries. It is hypothesized that an increase in internet use will help to reduce inflation. Estimation results gathered from multivariate panel regression analyses support our hypothesis. According to the results, there is a statistically significant negative association between internet use and inflation in all models utilizing five different proxies for inflation except one model. Since the finding remains valid almost in all models, we can say that our results are robust with respect to different measure of inflation.

Foreign direct investments (FDI) pay attention to several factors when they enter an economy. Among those factors we may count political stability, wage level, corporate tax rate, corruption level, quality of infrastructure, quality of human capital, degree of openness, market size, growth rate, bureaucracy level, depth of financial market in the host
country. Particularly the level and quality of infrastructure network of an economy is one of the most important factors in attraction of FDI since infrastructure network of a country plays crucial role in the transportation of produced goods.
However infrastructure network of a country has been considered in a broad definition in the literature not only including
airways, railways, seaways and roads but also ICT infrastructure as well. This study examines the role of infrastructure on
FDI in developing economies by using seven distinct infrastructure indicators. Our hypothesis claims that a country with
better infrastructure network is able to attract more FDI. According to multivariate estimation results, there is a positive
statistically significant relationship between infrastructure and FDI. This finding keeps its validity in all seven models and
therefore we can say that our results are robust regardless of which measure of infrastructure is used in the analysis.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the impact of globalization on corruption level of an economy in an unbalanced panel data analysis for 34 OECD countries for the period 2002-2012. For this purpose, we used two distinct corruption variables as dependent variable and four separate globalization variables (i.e., social, economic, political and over all globalization indexes) from the existing globalization and corruption literature. We also included four more control variables, including trade openness level, poverty level, inflation rate and FDI inflows in order to check the robustness of our findings. In this regard, the empirical estimation results of fixed time effect models depict that all globalization indicators (excluding political globalization indicator) have statistically significant and negative effect on corruption level in OECD countries and this result keeps its validity across two different corruption indicators. In addition to this main finding, it has been seen that an increase in trade openness and poverty level is related to an increase in corruption level while inflation rate and foreign direct investment inflows are negatively associated with corruption level.

This article investigates the link between corruption and CO2 emission through an unbalanced panel data set for 172 countries over the period 1995-2013. It makes contribution to the literature since we use a large and comprehensive country data set. The paper also includes three major measures of corruption data set from different sources including control of corruption, corruption perception index and freedom from corruption. The results indicate that CO2 emission is positively correlated with increased corruption level. In this regard, all three
indicators of corruption appears to have an significant effects on CO2 emission in a wide range of countries. Therefore, it is concluded that corruption prevention strategies are an important factor in explaining attitudes to environment policies. On the other hand, this paper uses other control variables effecting CO2 emissions in the literature where they are trade openness, urban population ratio, population growth and manufacturing activities, respectively. The results of control variables show that urban population ratio, population growth and manufacturing activities have positive effects on the CO2 emission while trade openness help to decrease CO2 emission due to more green-oriented technology transfer. As a result of this study, we obtain consistence results with the existing literature by adding stronger dataset in the widest sense.

In recent years, there have been great interest for solving corruption problems associated with public and private sector. On the other hand, nowadays the rapid development of technology related to transformation in the ICT technologies is observed from many sources in the literature. In this process, implementations of anticorruption policies have been helped by these technologies. In addition to this support, the empirical analyses on relationships between ICT and corruption are still scarce. In this regard, this paper focuses whether ICT technologies reduces corruption, adopting univariate and multivariate models with panel data in 177 countries for the period 2002-2012. It assumes that developments in ICT technologies of countries determine greatly their level of corruption in terms of public institutions. Moreover, we employ four ICT indicators, including internet, cell phone, computer and fixed broadband and two corruption indexes. The results indicate that all of these technologies causes a decrease in the two corruption indexes. On the other hand, we also include four more instrumental variables to check the robust of our models. In this regard, trade openness and FDI have negative and statistically significant effects on the corruption while poverty and inflation have statistically significant and positive impact on the corruption.

This paper aims to contribute to the empirical literature on the role of
natural resources rents on corruption level by utilizing an unbalanced data set of 187 countries in the largest sense. The data covers the years between 2002 and 2016. This paper, also, differs from previous empirical papers in two aspects: firstly, comparing to existing studies in the literature, this paper uses the largest sample size in terms of number of countries contained in the  analyses. Secondly, it conducts the same analysis and discusses results for different sub-samples, such as developing, African, Sub-Saharan, East Asia & Pacific, MENA (Middle East and North Africa), and transition countries. The main finding of the study discloses that natural resource rents have a strong statistically significant positive impact on the corruption level prevailing in an economy. This result is robust in the sense that it keeps its validity no matter which sum-sample is used.

Following the introduction section, the rest of this paper is structured as
follows: Section 2 briefly reviews the related theoretical and empirical literature on corruption. In Section 3, we present the data and methodology used in the analyses. Section 4 reveals and discusses the estimation results of analysis for the entire sample and also for sub-samples. We provide our suggestions based on our empirical findings in the final section.

Corruption has many adverse effects on the economy, especially on the economic growth. This has stimulated academic studies on corruption. The empirical relationship between corruption and economic growth has been studied extensively in the literature (Dridi, 2013; Aghion, Akcigit, Cagé and Kerr, 2016). Corruption can also affect other variables. One of the variables that corruption can affect is labor productivity. In theoretical and empirical research, many variables have been associated with labor productivity (Yildirim, Koyuncu and Koyuncu, 2009; Koyuncu, Yilmaz and Unver, 2016). This chapter aims to explain the effect of corruption on the labor productivity by using data for 61 countries for 2000–2011 periods. This relationship was examined by using 3 different corruption indicators and 13 different labor productivity indicators. As such this study is the most comprehensive analysis on the subject in the literature. Similar studies examining this relationship do not have such a large sample (Del Mar Salinas- Jimenez and Salinas-Jimenez, 2011; Saastamoinen and Kuosmanen, 2014; De Rosa, Gooroochurn and Görg, 2015).

The remainder of the chapter is organized as follows: Section 2 examines theoretical and empirical literature on the relationship between corruption and the productivity, whereas Section 3 outlines the data and methodology. Section 4 provides the empirical results and Section 5 concludes.