Economics

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10679/316

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Now showing 1 - 20 of 60

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Accounting for age in marital search decisions
(Elsevier, 2016-06) Akın, Şerife Nuray; Platt, B. C.; Economics; DURAN, Şerife Nuray
Spouse quality, measured by educational attainment, varies significantly with the age at which an individual marries, peaking in the mid-twenties then declining through the early-forties. Interestingly, this decline is much sharper for women than men, meaning women increasingly marry less educated men as they age. Moreover, quality has worsened for educated women over several decades, while it has improved for men. Using a non-stationary sequential search model, we identify and quantify the search frictions that generate these age-dependent marriage outcomes. We find that single-life utility is typically the dominant friction, though college women in the 1950 and 1970 cohorts are affected even more by deteriorating suitor quality. Regardless of educational status, individual choice (as opposed to pure luck) is pivotal in explaining marriage market outcomes earlier in life.
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Aspiration-based choice
(Elsevier, 2018-07) Güney, Begüm; Richter, M.; Tsur, M.; Economics; GÜNEY, Begüm
Numerous studies and experiments suggest that aspirations for desired but perhaps unavailable alternatives influence decisions. A common finding is that an unavailable aspiration steers agents to choose similar available alternatives. We propose and axiomatically characterize a choice theory consistent with this aspirational effect. Similarity is modeled using a subjective metric derived from choice data. This model offers implications for consumer welfare and its distribution between rich and poor when firms compete for aspirational agents, and a novel rationale for sales.
Open Access
The asymmetric impact of oil prices, interest rates and oil price uncertainty on unemployment in the US
(Elsevier, 2020-02-01) Kocaaslan, B.; Soytas, U.; Soytaş, Mehmet Ali; Economics; SOYTAŞ, Mehmet Ali
In this study, we investigate the presence of asymmetric interactions between oil prices, oil price uncertainty, interest rates, and unemployment in a cointegration framework. Utilizing the nonlinear auto-regressive distributed lag (NARDL) approach, we show the asymmetric responses of unemployment to changes in oil prices, oil price uncertainty and interest rates in the long-run. More specifically, the results of our analyses suggest that an increase in oil price results in increased unemployment while there is no significant impact of reduced oil prices. On the one hand, reduced oil price uncertainty leads to a decrease in unemployment whereas an increase in oil price uncertainty does not have an impact. We also observe increased unemployment in response to a decrease in interest rates as the impact of increased interest rates is not significant. Last but not least, we find that option-implied oil price volatility, as a measure of oil price uncertainty, outperforms the conditional volatility of crude oil prices in predicting unemployment. This study provides valuable implications for policymakers to design sound economic policies.
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Bank regulation under fire sale externalities
(Oxford University Press, 2020-06) Kara, G. I.; Özsoy, Satı Mehmet; Economics; ÖZSOY, Satı Mehmet
We examine the optimal design of and interaction between capital and liquidity regulations. Banks, not internalizing fire sale externalities, overinvest in risky assets and underinvest in liquid assets in the competitive equilibrium. Capital requirements can alleviate the inefficiency, but banks respond by decreasing their liquidity ratios. When capital requirements are the only available tool, the regulator tightens them to offset banks' lower liquidity ratios, leading to fewer risky assets and less liquidity compared with the second best. Macroprudential liquidity requirements that complement capital regulations implement the second best, improve financial stability, and allow for more investment in risky assets.
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Catching up or drifting apart: convergence of household and business credit in Europe
(Elsevier, 2017) Bahadır, Berrak; Valev, N.; Economics; BAHADIR, Berrak
We provide evidence for convergence in the levels of household and business credit across European countries. The process is particularly strong for the transition countries that have a low initial level of private credit and are catching up with Western Europe. However, the convergence is associated mostly with household credit, including housing loans and consumer credit, which may limit its benefits for economic growth.
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Characterizing the TTC rule via pair-efficiency: A short proof
(Elsevier, 2024-01) Ekici, Özgün; Sethuraman, J.; Economics; EKİCİ, Özgün
In the object reallocation problem, Ekici (2023) showed that Top Trading Cycles (TTC) is the unique rule that is strategyproof, individual-rational, and pair-efficient. We provide a short proof of this characterization result.
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A comparison of optimal policy rules prior to and during inflation targeting: empirical evidence from Bank of Canada
(Taylor & Francis, 2017) Eksi, O.; Kaya Eksi, N.; Özlale, Ümit; Economics; ÖZLALE, Ümit
We examine policy rules that are consistent with inflation targeting (IT) framework in a small macroeconomic model of the Canadian economy. We set up an optimal linear regulator problem and derive policy rules to compare the dynamics of pre-IT and IT eras. We find that while the optimal monetary policy rule in the pre-IT period is best described with a loss function that attaches equal weight to price stability, financial stability and output stability; the IT era is dominated by the price stability objective followed by the financial stability and output stability, consecutively. Moreover, we do not find an explicit role for exchange rate stability in the objective function of the Bank of Canada for both monetary policy eras. We, then, compare the properties of the derived optimal rules with those of an ad hoc Taylor rule for the IT period. In response to inflationary shocks, Taylor rule brings down inflation rates more quickly compared to the derived policy rules, but at the cost of a higher sacrifice ratio and more volatile interest rates.
Open Access
Corporate sustainability interactions: A game theoretical approach to sustainability decisions
(Elsevier, 2019-12) Soytaş, Mehmet Ali; Uşar, Damla Durak; Denizel, M.; Soytaş, Mehmet Ali; Uşar, Damla Durak
Recent global developments lead companies to include into their strategic plans not only economic sustainability but environmental and social sustainability as well. Companies have been investing in environmental and social sustainability to meet stakeholder demand and/or regulatory demands. Considering this as a market mechanism, we view the sustainability actions of companies as interrelated strategic decisions and propose a Stackelberg game to model the effects of competition for sustainability and sustainability spillovers over the sustainability outcomes of companies. We provide equilibrium solutions for the one leader, two followers game over different intervals of competition levels and spillover rates. Using a numerical example, we observe how the sustainability investments and net benefits change as competition levels and spillover rates change and identify the competition-spillover regions, where each player invests the most and has the advantage in terms of benefit. We discuss implications for both the companies and the policy makers.
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Costly switching from a status quo
(Elsevier, 2018-12) Güney, Begüm; Richter, M.; Economics; GÜNEY, Begüm
We axiomatically characterize a theory of status quo-dependent choice where an agent faces switching costs that depend upon both the status quo and the alternative he switches to. In a choice problem with a status quo, the agent chooses the alternatives that yield the highest utility net of switching cost. This generates status quo bias and also allows for a wide range of reference effects. We examine the behavior of such agents in Prisoner’s Dilemma (PD) games. In a single PD game, switching costs can lead to cooperation. However, across different PD games, it is not “anything goes” and instead we derive necessary and sufficient conditions for cooperation rates to be consistent with our model. We then verify that these conditions are satisfied by Charness et al.’s (2016) experimental data. We also perform a similar analysis for other theories such as models of status quo bias, magical thinking, inequity aversion, and fairness; and find that these theories make either invalidated or looser predictions.
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Credit decomposition and business cycles in emerging market economies
(Elsevier, 2016) Bahadır, Berrak; Gumus, I.; Economics; BAHADIR, Berrak
This paper analyzes the differential effects of household and business credit dynamics on business cycles in emerging market economies. We first provide evidence that existing results relating credit expansions to economic expansions, real exchange rate appreciations and trade deficits hold more strongly for household credit than business credit. Then, using a two-sector real business cycle model of a small open economy, we study the model dynamics generated by shocks to household credit and business credit, the latter further divided into credit to tradable and nontradable sectors. The results show that the three types of credit shocks generate different dynamics in sectoral input and output levels as well as the real exchange rate. The model successfully generates the comovement between the cycle and different credit types, matching the strong positive correlation of household credit with output and real exchange rate, and the negative correlation with net exports. Our results underline the importance of distinguishing between household and business credit in studying credit dynamics.
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Damaged durable goods, upgrades, and the coase conjecture
(Mohr Siebeck, 2018-12) Özener, Başak Altan; Economics; ÖZENER, Başak Altan
This study analyzes a damaged-goods market for a perfectly durable good in an infinite-horizon, discrete-time game. We characterize Markov perfect equilibria of this game under different buyer upgrade possibilities as a function of the common discount factor, the length of the time period between successive price changes, and the quality levels of the goods. We establish that introducing a lower-quality good (or equivalently, damaging a good) works as a commitment device only if consumers holding a durable good cannot reenter the market. When a buyer can upgrade the product, we establish that for all parameter values the Coase conjecture survives.
Open Access
Domine edilen statükonun referans etkisi
(Okan Üniversitesi, 2018-05) Güney, Begüm; Economics; GÜNEY, Begüm
Statüko, bir kişinin şu anki konumunu temsil eder. Çalışılan iş ve yaşanılan şehir statüko için verilebilecek örnekler arasındadır. Bir statüko, kendi seçilmese bile, diğer alternatifler arasındaki göreceli sıralamayı değiştirerek kişinin bu alternatifler arasındaki seçimini etkileyebilir ve buna “referans etkisi” denir. Bu çalışmada, statükoların referans etkisini anlamak için Özyeğin Üniversitesi lisans öğrencileri arasında bir anket yapılmıştır. Anket, Qualtrics programı kullanılarak hazırlanmış ve katılımcıların e-posta adreslerine tek kullanımlık bir bağlantı gönderilerek öğrencilerle paylaşılmıştır. Ankette katılımcılardan, depolama kapasitesi ve pil ömrü ile tanımlanmış farklı telefonlar arasında seçim yapmaları istenmiştir. Görülmüştür ki, statüko diğer alternatiflerin her biri tarafından domine edildiğinde - yani diğer alternatiflerden hem pil ömrü hem depolama kapasitesi bakımından daha kötü olduğunda - ve kendi seçilmediğinde bile, kişinin bu alternatifler arasındaki seçimini değiştirebilir. İstatistiki olarak anlamlı miktarda kişinin, aynı kümeden statüko varlığında ve yokluğunda yaptığı seçimlerin farklı olduğu görülmüştür. Bu davranış, literatürdeki teorik statüko modelleri arasından ancak sürekli referans etkisine izin verenler (Guney ve Richter, 2017) tarafından açıklanabilmektedir.
Open Access
Dynamic durable goods monopoly and market power
(MDPI, 2020-06) Özener, Başak Altan; Economics; ÖZENER, Başak Altan
We analyze a vertically differentiated market for an imperfectly durable good served by a monopolist in an infinite-horizon, discrete-time game. Our goal is to identify the Markov perfect stationary equilibria where the seller can maintain his monopoly power. We establish that the set of parameters supporting a monopoly outcome is larger when the seller offers different quality versions of the same product. Hence, our results suggest that, when the innate durability of a product is high, the seller should offer different quality versions of the product.
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Dynamic moral hazard with sequential tasks
(Elsevier, 2019-10) Özener, Başak Altan; Economics; ÖZENER, Başak Altan
We study a sequential agency problem with hidden actions in an infinite horizon dynamic setting. The principal has a project that requires completion of two sequential tasks where the predecessor must be finished before the successor can be started. We characterize the efficient outcome as well as the optimal full commitment contract.
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The effect of hosting 3.4 million refugees on native population mortality
(Elsevier, 2021-12) Aygün, A.; Kırdar, M. G.; Tuncay Alpanda, Berna; Economics; ALPANDA, Berna Tuncay
As of the end of 2017, 3.4 million Syrian refugees lived in Turkey. These refugees left a country where the health system was utterly broken. Several studies report that Syrian refugees faced numerous diseases during their exodus, brought certain infectious diseases to the hosting communities, and have a high incidence of health care utilization. Moreover, they have much higher fertility rates than natives. We examine the effect of Syrian refugees on the health care resources in Turkey and on natives’ mortality—with a focus on infant, child, and elderly mortality. Our OLS results yield suggestive evidence of an adverse effect of the refugee shock on infant and child mortality. However, we find that this is a result of endogenous settlement patterns of refugees. Once we account for the endogeneity using a plausibly exogenous instrument, we find no evidence of an effect on native mortality for any age group. We also analyze the refugees’ pressure on the health care services in Turkey and the government's response to understand our findings on mortality outcomes.
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Effectiveness of monetary policy: evidence from Turkey
(Springer International Publishing, 2017-08) Avci, S. B.; Yücel, Mustafa Eray; Economics; YÜCEL, Mustafa Eray
An effective monetary policy framework is often viewed as a pre-condition for well-functioning financial markets. Yet measuring monetary policy effectiveness is not straightforward; it requires empirical work to understand the impact of financial infrastructure, competitiveness of financial markets, and current economic conditions. In particular, monetary policy effectiveness depends on the extent to which the chosen interest rate affects all other financial prices—including the entire term structure of interest rates, credit rates, exchange rates, and asset prices. This paper examines the effectiveness of monetary policy in Turkey by focusing on interest rate pass-through outcomes by way of an interacted vector autoregressive (IVAR) approach. The results suggest that policy-led rate changes are fully transmitted to deposit and credit rates within eight months. Competition in the banking sector (as well as that sector’s liquidity and profitability), dollarization, exchange rate flexibility, inflation, and term structure all have a positive effect on interest rate pass-through; whereas regulatory quality, GDP growth, monetary growth, industrial growth, and capital inflows have a negative effect. Using various tests, we find that the effect of financial development and macroeconomic variables on interest rate pass-through is neither robust nor time-invariant.
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Emerging market economies and the world interest rate
(Elsevier, 2015-11) Bahadır, Berrak; Lastrapes, W. D.; Economics; BAHADIR, Berrak
We use a Factor Augmented VAR model to estimate the dynamic responses of interest rates in emerging market economies to the ‘world’ interest rate, which we extract from a dynamic factor model of yields in industrialized countries. Our results provide evidence that many emerging market yields respond to world rate shocks, at least gradually, which is broadly consistent with capital market integration. Our findings also suggest that the world rate captures information about emerging market yields not contained in US rates, which are typically used to proxy for the world rate.
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An equilibrium analysis of the probabilistic serial mechanism
(Springer Science+Business Media, 2016-08) Ekici, Özgün; Kesten, O.; Economics; EKİCİ, Özgün
The prominent mechanism of the recent literature in the assignment problem is the probabilistic serial (PS). Under PS, the truthful (preference) proÖle always constitutes an ordinal Nash Equilibrium, inducing a random assignment that satisÖes the appealing ordinal e¢ ciency and envy-freeness properties. We show that both properties may fail to be satisÖed by a random assignment induced in an ordinal Nash Equilibrium where one or more agents are non-truthful. Worse still, the truthful proÖle may not constitute a Nash Equilibrium, and every non-truthful proÖle that constitutes a Nash Equilibrium may lead to a random assignment which is not ordinally e¢ cient, not even weakly envy-free, and which admits an ex-post ine¢ cient decomposition. A strong ordinal Nash Equilibrium may not exist, but when it exists, any proÖle that constitutes a strong ordinal Nash Equilibrium induces the random assignment induced under the truthful proÖle. The results of our equilibrium analysis of PS call for caution when implementing it in small assignment problems.
Open Access
Estimation of dynastic lifecycle discrete choice models
(Wiley, 2018-11) Gayle, G. - L.; Golan, L.; Soytaş, Mehmet Ali; Economics; SOYTAŞ, Mehmet Ali
This paper explores the estimation of a class of life‐cycle discrete choice dynastic models. It provides a new representation of the value function for these class of models. It compare a multistage conditional choice probability (CCP) estimator based on the new value function representation with a modified version of the full solution maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) in a Monte Carlo study. The modified CCP estimator performs comparably to the MLE in a finite sample but greatly reduces the computational cost. Using the proposed estimator, we estimate a dynastic model and use the estimated model to conduct counterfactual simulations to investigate the role Nature versus Nurture in intergenerational mobility. We find that Nature accounts for 20 percent of the observed intergenerational immobility at the bottom of income distribution. That means that 80 percent of mobility at the bottom of the income distribution is explained by economic decision and economic/institutional constraints.
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An experiment on aspiration-based choice
(Elsevier, 2015-11) Güney, Begüm; Richter, M.; Economics; GÜNEY, Begüm
This paper experimentally studies the influence of aspirations on choice. Motivated by the theoretical model of Guney et al. (2015), we consider choice problems which may include unavailable alternatives. In a choice problem, an aspiration is the most desired alternative there (available or not). In our design, we endogenously derive both aspirations and a subjective similarity notion that operates between an aspiration and other alternatives. We find that (i) choice reversals are more likely when an unavailable aspiration alternative is added into the environment than when an unavailable non-aspiration alternative is added, (ii) an available option is more likely to be chosen when there is an unavailable aspiration that is similar to it compared to when there is no such option in the environment, (iii) choices are better explained by a similarity-based procedure when the subjective similarity notion that is derived in a separate part of the experiment is used rather than the Euclidean distance.

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