Wage Inequality and Returns to Education in Turkey: A Quantile Regression Analaysis

Aysit Tansel and Fatma Bircan

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This paper investigates the male wage inequality and its evolution over the 1994- 2002 period in Turkey by estimating Mincerian wage equations using OLS and quantile regression techniques. Male wage inequality is high in Turkey. While it declined at the lower end of the wage distribution it increased at the top end of wage distribution. Education contributed to higher wage inequality through both within and between dimensions. The within-groups inequality increased and between-groups inequality decreased over the study period. The latter factor may have dominated the former contributing to the observed decline in the male wage inequality over the 1994-2002. Further results are provided for the wage effects of experience, public sector employment, geographic location, firm size, industry of employment and their contribution to wage inequality. Recent increases in FDI inflows, openness to trade and global technological developments are discussed as contributing factors to the recent rising within-groups wage inequality.

Macroeconomic Impact of Remittances on Output Growth: Evidence from Turkey

Aysit Tansel and Pınar Yaşar

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This study estimates a Keynesian simultaneous, dynamic macroeconometric model to investigate the impact of remittances on key macro variables such as consumption, investment, imports and income in Turkey. The estimated impact and dynamic multipliers indicate that impact of remittances on consumption, imports and income are all positive and reduce gradually while that on investment wears out in the second year. The impact multiplier for income implies a substantial increase in income due to remittances through the multiplier process. The remittances-induced output growth rate is highest during the early 1970s and the early 1980s, but negligible during the other years.

International Capital Mobility and Factor Reallocation in a Multisector Economy

Şirin Saraçoğlu and Zeynep Akgül

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This paper examines the effects of international capital flows in a small open econ omy utilizing a dynamic general equilibrium framework based on a three-sector Ramsey growth model. In order to analyze the impact of international capital mobility on production, consumption and allocation of resources across three sectors ,two different economic environments are modelled. The first model represents an open economy with capital mobility (a more comprehensive environment),and the second model introduces a closed economy with no capital mobility. Numerical applications of the models use data from the Turkish economy for the year 2002. The numerical results demonstrate that the presence of capital mobility, despite being limited by a borrowing constraint, reverses the impact of economic growth on production and resource allocation. The results also show that while production in the closed economy model simply adjusts to domestic demand, that of the open economy model is not constrained by it. Results further point that although there is positive growth in income and output in both environments, income growth in the capital mobility environment falls short of that in the no capital mobility environment. This result can be attributed to the relatively slower accumulation of capi tal in the former, which may be compensated by a positive rate of technological progress to accompany international capital flows.