Person: SOYTAŞ, Mehmet Ali
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Mehmet Ali
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SOYTAŞ
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ArticlePublication 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 AliIn 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.Conference paperPublication Open Access Optimistic entrepreneurs and new product introductions in high technology industries(Academy of Management, 2018) Işıklar, Rukiye Işıl Yavuz; Dutta, D. K.; Soytaş, Mehmet Ali; Economics; YAVUZ IŞIKLAR, Rukiye Işil; SOYTAŞ, Mehmet AliThis study examines how the relationship between past performance and new product introductions is influenced by entrepreneurial optimism. Based on the behavioral theory of the firm, we test how past performance suggest low performance relative to aspirations helps new ventures initiate strategic change, such as new product introductions. In contrast, high performance relative to aspirations tends to reinforce status quo. Moreover, we argue that when past performance falls below aspirations, new ventures founded by optimistic entrepreneurs are more likely to introduce new products than those with less optimistic entrepreneurs. We test our hypotheses using data from the Kauffman Firm Survey on 333 newly founded high technology new ventures in the U.S. Our results strongly support our interaction hypothesis. After controlling for the impact of several entrepreneurial and firm-level characteristics, we show that the rate of new product introductions is highest in ventures founded by optimistic entrepreneurs where the ventures have shown low prior performance relative to their aspirations.ArticlePublication Open Access Does being internationalmake companiesmore sustainable? Evidence based on corporate sustainability indices(Elsevier, 2018-06) Soytaş, Mehmet Ali; Atik, Asya; Economics; SOYTAŞ, Mehmet Ali; Atik, AsyaThe existing literature on the relationship between corporate sustainability performance and being a domestic or international company doubt on which type of operating has more potential to be corporate sustainable. It might be expected that two types of firms can have different advantages. We take this as an empirical question and bring it to data to find an answer. We created a methodology to compare the corporate sustainability level of different companies. In this methodology, we developed different internationality indices and evaluate the effects of those on corporate sustainability. We used firm level financial variables, time and firm effects for controlling some aspects of firm heterogeneity. We estimate the indices of the internationality using the performance ratings from MSCI KLD 400 Social Index and financial information from Wharton Research Data Services' COMPUSTAT dataset. Our results present empirical evidence to support the hypothesis that being an international firm is increasing the sustainability of the company on average. Furthermore, to better understand the mechanism of this result, we examined the effect of being international separately for the factors (these are named as strengths and concerns in KLD) that increase and decrease the sustainability score of the companies respectively. We found surprisingly that being an international firm increases both strengths and concerns more compared to a domestic firm. This suggests that international companies perform higher standards on the strengths but also face hard time to reduce the concerns due to possibly multiple regulations that they face, or coordination issues in different counties etc.ArticlePublication Open Access Intergenerational mobility and the effects of parental education, time investment, and income on children’s educational attainment(Federal Reserve Bank of St.Louis, 2018-07-15) Gayle, G. - L.; Golan, L.; Soytaş, Mehmet Ali; Economics; SOYTAŞ, Mehmet AliThis article analyzes the mechanisms through which parents’ and children’s education are linked. It estimates the causal effect of parental education, parental time with children, and parental income during early childhood on the educational outcomes of children. Estimating the causal effects of time with children, income, and parental education is challenging because parental time with children is usually unavailable in many datasets and because of the problem of endogeneity of parental income, time with children, and education. The authors, therefore, use an instrumental variables approach to estimate the causal effects. They find that once they account for the parental time input with children, parental income during the first five years is no longer statistically significant. The parental time investments of both parents in early childhood are each statistically and quantitatively significant determinants of the educational outcomes of children.ArticlePublication Open Access A new estimation technique of sovereign default risk(Elsevier, 2016-12-27) Soytaş, Mehmet Ali; Volkan, Engin; Economics; SOYTAŞ, Mehmet Ali; VOLKAN, EnginUsing the fixed-point theorem, sovereign default models are solved by numerical value function iteration and calibration methods, which due to their computational constraints, greatly limits the models' quantitative performance and foregoes its country-specific quantitative projection ability. By applying the Hotz-Miller estimation technique (Hotz and Miller, 1993)- often used in applied microeconometrics literature- to dynamic general equilibrium models of sovereign default, one can estimate the ex-ante default probability of economies, given the structural parameter values obtained from country-specific business-cycle statistics and relevant literature. Thus, with this technique we offer an alternative solution method to dynamic general equilibrium models of sovereign default to improve upon their quantitative inference ability.ArticlePublication Open Access Estimation of dynastic lifecycle discrete choice models(Wiley, 2018-11) Gayle, G. - L.; Golan, L.; Soytaş, Mehmet Ali; Economics; SOYTAŞ, Mehmet AliThis 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.ArticlePublication Open Access Role of strategic interactions in corporate sustainability decisions: an empirical investigation(Turkish Economic Association, 2017-01-01) Soytaş, Mehmet Ali; Uşar, Damla Durak; Economics; SOYTAŞ, Mehmet Ali; Uşar, Damla DurakThere is a large amount of empirical literature on the relationship between corporate sustainability and corporate financial performance. However, the literature considers company-specific aspects affecting the link but omits the influence of the competition. A firm’s gains from its sustainability efforts, however, depend on whether its industry competitors also perform sustainable actions—whether similar in type or different. Thus, we consider the sustainability decision making of companies to be of a strategic nature and show that strategic motives, typically ignored in the literature, can be an important factor in the process. We estimate an Instrumental Variable (IV) Probit model, using inclusion in the MSCI KLD 400 Social Index and draw on financial information from the Wharton Research Data Services COMPUSTAT dataset in order to identify the effect of competition. We find that the effect of competition on the likelihood of entry into the sustainability market is negative, but this is only true if the endogeneity is correctly taken into account. Probit estimates present an upward bias, which means that results from raw models can be misleading in designing policies on sustainability. Overall evidence suggests a central role for strategic motives in management’s sustainability decisions.
ArticlePublication Metadata only Addressing endogeneity in the causal relationship between sustainability and financial performance(Elsevier, 2019-04) Soytaş, Mehmet Ali; Denizel, M.; Uşar, Damla Durak; Economics; SOYTAŞ, Mehmet Ali; Uşar, Damla DurakThe existing empirical literature on the relationship between corporate sustainability performance and corporate financial performance casts doubt on the direction of this relationship although more studies point out a direction from sustainability to performance. Literature also presents a gap in addressing the mechanism(s) of the relationship that hinders the convergence of the empirical findings and only recently the question of causality is being addressed with modern econometric techniques. We argue that due to the potential endogeneity problem in the relationship, an empirical strategy without a theoretical base may result in inconclusive or misleading conclusions. We address the potential endogeneity problem in the relationship and identify the possible causes of this endogeneity as: (i) firm level heterogeneity in financial returns, (ii) the relationship between firm's productivity level and the marginal cost of sustainability initiatives, and (iii) measurement error. We implement Instrumental Variable (IV) technique to overcome these biases. Our results present empirical evidence to support the hypothesis that corporate sustainability is positively related (possibly causally) with corporate financial performance. We further find that sustainability initiatives are more costly for companies that are more productive; thus, they have less incentive to invest. Finally, measurement error in the sustainability metrics does not play a crucial role.ArticlePublication Open Access Sustainable development from millennium 2015 to sustainable development goals 2030(Wiley, 2019-07) Halisçelik, E.; Soytaş, Mehmet Ali; Economics; SOYTAŞ, Mehmet AliIn modern economies, the advancement of well‐being of the citizens should be in an inclusive and sustainable way. In this respect, the sustainable welfare targets should exclusively include three main pillars: economic growth, social inclusion, and environmental protection. These pillars consist of qualitative and nonmonetary, as well as monetary and quantitative indicators to monitor. Although sustainable development today is well‐appreciated in most governments' agenda, yet it is generally not a trivial task to measure its progress especially due to multidimensional nature of some targets. In this article, sustainable development is measured by using a wide range of indicators within multidimensional perspective of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 2015. Indicators cover wide spectrum of areas such as poverty reduction, health, education, gender equality, and environment. An index creation method is developed for measuring the level and the performance of countries' progress through achieving MDGs. The index score levels and the rankings of countries are compared with similar indexes developed by United Nations. Finally, countries are classified according to their achievements relative to other countries (which is measured by the index) versus their self‐achievement performances (in terms of improvement of the index over years) in a big matrix. Results demonstrate the importance of measuring country performances in both dimensions. Understanding the progress in MDGs can help settle on binding targets for achieving the country specific goals in economic and noneconomic areas and on the mechanisms to implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030, which set amid on the success of MDGs.ArticlePublication Open Access Çocuğa yapılan zaman yatırımlarının i̇ş gücü pi̇yasasindaki̇ kadın-erkek ücret farklılığına etki̇leri̇(Hacettepe Üniversitesi, 2017-01-23) Soytaş, Mehmet Ali; Economics; SOYTAŞ, Mehmet AliÖz kadarını kullandıklarının ve bunun demografik özelliklerle nasıl değiştiğinin anlaşılması için, kadın ve çocuklarının oluşturduğu bir veri seti kullanarak model tahmini yapmaktır. Nesiller arası yapı, çocukların yetişkin çıktılarını toplulaştırmak için doğal bir yol sağlar çünkü bu çıktılar modelde gelecek jenerasyondaki çocukların değer fonksiyonu ile ölçülür. Bu ölçüt, çocuklara yapılan yatırımların beklenen getirisi için iyi bir temsil sağlar. Kadının değer fonksiyonu, hem kendi çalışmadığı durumdaki gelir kaybını, hem de yatırım yaptığı durumda çocuklarına dair beklentileri içerir. Bu iki faktörden ikincisinin, ilkinden kaynaklanan kaybı telafi ettiği ölçüde, kadınlar iş gücü piyasasında çalışmaya harcadıkları ödünleşme aynı zamanda eğitime de dayalıdır, dolayısıyla her ikisinde de iyi olabilecek eğitimli kadınlar için durumu daha da marjinal hale getirmektedir. Tahmin edilen model ve politika simülasyonları, zaman yatırımının kadınların iş gücü tercihini etkileyen önemli bir kanal olduğunu ve zaman yatırımının çocukların gelecekteki çıktılarını etkilemede önemli bir rol oynadığını bulunmuştur.