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This paper first evaluates the impact of a two-decade-long Islamization policy carried out by a pro-Islamist party, which came to power in 2002 in Turkey, on the attitudes of Turkish people toward religious values, religious practices, and clergy. In this regard, how the importance of religion, frequency of going to mosques, and trust in the clergy have changed among Turkish Muslims between 2002 and 2018 were examined by using World Values Survey data and employing logistic regression analysis. Estimation results indicated a reduction in belief in God, attendance to mosques, and trust in clergy, which imply the failure of the Islamization policy. Second, we explored what caused the failure by using the same data set and methodology. Our estimations suggested that the symbiotic relationship between the pro-Islamist government and religious clergy and institutions may explain the failure. As the government is identified with religion in the eye of the public, dissatisfaction with the government turned to dissatisfaction with religious values.

Whether economic growth is the cause or the consequence of improved institutional quality has been a controversial issue. To throw light on this debate, the present study aims to investigate the nature and direction of causality between institutional quality and economic growth. To this end, a panel data of 30 SSA countries for the 1990–2015 period is used and analyzed using a heterogeneous panel non-causality approach developed by Dumitrescu and Hurlin (Econ Model 29(4):1450–1460, 2012). Our empirical findings indicate a significant heterogeneity across the countries with regard to the relationship between growth and institutional quality, based on the income level. In low-income countries, we found a unidirectional causality that runs from institutional quality to growth. For lower-middle-income countries, however, the direction of causality is reversed. The evidence from this study also suggests a bidirectional causality in upper-middle-income countries. The policy implication of these findings is that policymakers in low-income countries should focus on institutional reform. Good quality institutions will promote economic growth that will ultimately turn into a cyclical process between economic growth and institutional development in later stages.

The main aim of this paper is to examine empirically the extent to which firm-specific action, innovation, and an external factor, the quality of regional institution, affect firms’ productivity. T...

While the impact of government interference to the religious domain has long been discussed in previous literature, empirical evidence on the nexus between government intervention to religion and individuals’ giving to religious organizations remains limited. In this study, we aim to fill this gap and examine whether government intervention affects individuals’ giving to faith-based charities. To this end, a survey data conducted in 20 European countries and two measures of government intervention to religion were used. Our empirical investigation based on multilevel logistic regression, after controlling for possible confounding factors at individual and country levels, indicates that government regulation of religion has a significant negative impact both on religious donation and volunteering. The findings of the present study add substantially to our understanding of nexus between government and religion and will serve as a base for future studies.

The present study concentrates on answering following questions: (i) Do firm’s internal factors such as size, age, ownership, R&D spending, and exporting significantly predict the propensity of fir...

This article discusses publication performance and patterns of Turkish economists by analyzing changes overtime and comparing results to economists’ performance in some emerging economies. The results indicate that (1) the publication performance of Turkish economists and economics departments has improved rapidly over the years but they are still performing below their potential; (2) there is a remarkable difference in research performance among the institutions, but competition has been increasing; (3) the majority of contributions to research output in Turkey are made by six leading universities, but competitive pressure is coming from other institutions; (4) the faculties of the six leading universities are highly motivated to publish in high-quality journals, while members of the other institutions are also increasingly eager to find themselves a place in these outlets; (5) more than one-third of the articles are published in 10 of the 350 Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) Economics Journals, but the concentration ratio is decreasing overtime; (6) publication performance and patterns of Turkish economists are similar to their counterparts in emerging economies, but in some aspects Turkish economists perform better.

Bu çalışma, okul düzeyi verilerini kullanarak Türkiyedeki üniversite tercihini belirleyen faktörleri incelemektedir. Regresyon sonuçları, harç ücretlerinin, üniversitenin bulunduğu şehrin nüfusunun, üniversitenin akademik performansının ve öğretim dilinin, üniversite tercihini belirleyen önemli faktörlerden olduğunu göstermektedir. Sonuçlar ayrıca, devlet üniversitelerine giden öğrenciler için harç ücretlerinin, özel üniversitelere giden öğrenciler için ise akademik performansın daha önemli olduğunu göstermektedir., This study examines determinants of university choice in Turkey using school level data. Regression results show that tuition fees, population of the city in which the university is located, academic performance of the university, and language of instruction are important determinants of university choice. The results also reveal that the impact of tuition fees is higher for public university students, while private university students care more about academic performance than do their counterparts in public universities.

This study evaluates attitudes of Turkish university students towards markets and the influence on these attitudes of studying in economics. It is found that university students taking economics courses in Turkey have negative opinions about the justice of market relations, and that, unlike in the case of students in other countries, in Turkey, 4 years of study in an economics department does not change this. These results are in contradiction with the findings of other studies on Western students.

Economics literature witnessed the revival of Islamic economics over the last few decades as an alternative to conventional economic theory. Islamic economists criticized value-free nature and unrealistic assumptions of conventional economics and offered a new paradigm based on behavioral assumptions. Aim of this paper is to explore validity of these behavioral assumptions, in general, or more specifically, assumptions of Islamic economics concerning to giving. The validity of behavioral assumptions of IE and their results is rarely questioned in the literature. Particularly, empirical studies, in this regard, are very limited. This study aims to make a contribution to this methodological issue by analyzing country level charity data. Additionally, it also provides a modest contribution to empirical studies on charity/giving at the macro level. Results of the study shows that countries with more pious citizens give more than the others but found no difference between giving rates of Muslim-majority countries and the others. The finding is consistent with a limited number of other studies claiming that Muslims, in general, are not different from the others or are not behaving as described in Islamic economics. Increasing numbers of studies supporting findings of this study or raising questions about the validity of Islamic economics' assumptions may cause the Islamic economics to evolve in a different direction

This research analyses the transparency of regulations in the field of competition. Even though the topic is on regulations in the field of competition in general, it is specifically focused on: 1) how rules and policies to sustain competition are clear, open and accessible; and 2) transparency of the investigation process commenced by the regulatory authority on enterprises. Two different methods were applied to evaluate the transparency of these two fields. Firstly, a survey was prepared that included propositions on transparency; this was administered to staff of the regulatory authority, academics and legal experts specializing in competition law. Surveyees were asked to evaluate the transparency of each specific field. Secondly, by examining current laws, regulations, decisions of the regulatory authority and public communication channels, problems with the transparency of current rules and their enforcement were assessed. The experiences of the authors, the researchers and legal experts dealing with competition law who were brought together in a workshop organized as a part of this research guided us to determine the problems. The first method aimed to measure the perception of stakeholders, while the second method sought to determine the specific problems based on concrete facts. The following general findings were reached by the end of the research: 1) the legislation of competition and the Competition Authority are quite transparent in comparison with other fields of law and agencies in Turkey; 2) those who are obliged to provide information about competition regulation and those who use this information evaluate the transparency levels of regulations in the field of competition differently; 3) the Competition Authority places less importance on sharing information with third parties and the public than on sharing information with parties of the investigation; 4) problems with regard to the transparency of competition are mostly caused by enforcement of the current rules. The two basic problems regarding enforcement were determined to be: (a) not sharing current information with parties due to ‘confidentiality’ or ‘internal correspondence’; and (b) the Board’s inability to develop consistent practice on issues that are not clearly regulated by the laws.

This is the first study of technical efficiencies of higher education institutions and the first study evaluating performance at faculty level in Turkey. The study also compares technical efficiencies of private and public institutions. Estimation shows low overall efficiency with high variations across the faculties of economics. The results also demonstrate that average efficiency of public institutions is higher if the quality of data is not considered. However, when qualities of the outputs are taken into account, average efficiencies of public and private institutions converge.

The elimination of interest from financial transactions has been a salient goal of Islamization movements around the world. Its proponents have had to balance this objective, which they claim to draw from Islamic law (Sharia), against consumer demand for convenient products. In general they have opted to accommodate consumer demand, but surreptitiously, using legal ruses to disguise their compromises. Turkey's experience with credit cards offers a revealing case of the obfuscation in question. Having denounced credit cards as un-Islamic, Turkey's Islamic banks have all proceeded to issue credit cards of their own in order to remain competitive with their openly interest-friendly, conventional rivals. With local variations, the Turkish pattern resembles that of other markets where Islamic credit cards have made inroads. In Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates, too, Islamic credit cards function like those of the conventional banks with which they compete for customers. The Islamic features of Islamic credit cards amount to branding. Contrary to the claims of their proponents, they do not involve fundamental financial innovations. Journal of Comparative Economics 43 (4) (2015) 862-883. Marmara University, Turkey; Duke University, USA. (C) 2015 Association for Comparative Economic Studies. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

This is the first study evaluating the publication performances of economists and economics departments in Turkey. The international (article) publication performance of Turkish economic departments in general is found to be rather poor. There is a wide gap in particular between the top five universities and the economists affiliated to them and those outside the top five. The paper also provides evidence in favour of private higher education. The publication patterns of economists in Turkey are shown to be similar to those of their counterparts in the rest of the world.

Despite the continuing efforts and the introduction of economic policies stable growth rates in the developing countries have not been sustained for decades. Although wealth has improved when compa...

Summary. — Since the late 1960s, alternative forms of capitalization have emerged in the absence of an effective capital markets regime in Turkey. We can see these alternative forms in the failed attempts to create Anatolian holding companies through the direct investment of small savings. This article shows how Anatolian holding companies became victims of poor institutional and regulatory regimes, and how the lack of institutions to promote impersonal trust in the economy in turn, permitted widespread abuses. We identify populist politics, lax oversight, and social norms that incorporated gambling as three interlinked reasons which hindered the genesis and development of viable capital market reform and regulatory institutions in Turkey. 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

After the collapse of socialism, post-Soviet republics needed new economists equipped with the intellectual requirements of a new economic order based on private property and market mechanisms. To this end, they reorganized economics curricula, published new textbooks, and trained students and academics in their home countries or in the West. In all of these efforts, unlike during the old era, the new republics cooperated closely with international organizations. This leads to the question, addressed here, of how these efforts changed the quantity and quality of international publications of post-Soviet economists.The results of this study show that in the ex-Soviet Central Asian and Caucasian (CAC) countries, the number of international publications increased gradually. Results also indicate that publications usually concern regional issues and are published in low impact journals. The preference of CAC economists for Russian language journals implies that language is still a barrier to publication in international journals. Finally, cooperation with Westerners and Western institutions is found to contribute positively to the publication performance of post-Soviet economists.

In the socialist era, economists, like other scientists, had limited connections to the West and their work rarely appeared in international journals due to methodological differences between the Western and the socialist scholars in social sciences, inadequacies in English, and other legal restrictions. After the collapse of socialism, legal barriers were lifted but the new republics still needed new economists equipped with the requirements of the new economic order based on private property and market mechanisms. To this end, they reorganized their economics curricula, published new textbooks, and trained students and academics. Aim of this study is to discuss impact of policies adopted in economics education by transition countries on publication performances of economists in former socialist countries in Balkan region. In this regard, articles published by the economists of former socialist countries in the Balkans between 1990 and 2013 are examined. The articles published in journals indexed by Scopus database are classified on the bases of countries, dates, authors, affiliations, journals and subjects. Long term trends derived from these classifications are interpreted. The results of this study show that number of publications by Balkan economists in Scopus economics journals increased gradually over 1990-2013 period: Particularly, increasing number of regional journals indexed in the Scopus soared the international publications of the Balkan economists. Overwhelming majority of these works are in English, published in regional journals and are about regional issues. The study also revealed that most of the contributors are affiliated to big, old, public universities of the region.

Purpose – The literature shows economics students to be more market oriented than students from other disciplines. A major shortcoming of this work, however, is that it is based on research carried out in the west. The purpose of this paper is to examine the attitudes of Turkish economics students’ towards markets. Design/methodology/approach – The study reported here uses a survey developed by Lephard and Breeden to investigate students’ attitudes towards markets. The survey consists of 11 market-positive statements and 11 market-negative statements. Participants were asked to indicate their level of agreement with each statement, placed at between 0 and 100 per cent and classified into 11 categories. The survey was administered to economics, physics and mathematics students from different universities. Then, responses of economics students and others are compared. Findings – The results show that Turkish students are less market friendly than their western counterparts. Contrary to the findings of other studies, in Turkey studying economics is found to have no effect on attitudes in this respect. Originality/value – First, almost all of the other studies in this realm are all based on surveys carried out in the west. To the best of the knowledge, this is the first study for other parts of the world. Second, results show that Turkish economics students are less market friendly than their western counterparts, and that studying economics has no significant effect on this. These results are surprising and contrary to the consensus in the literature.

This study evaluates attitudes of Turkish university students towards markets and the influence on these attitudes of studying in economics, and compares the results with those of students in other countries. It is found that the opinions of university students in Turkey about the justice of market relations are negative as compared to those of students from other countries, and that, unlike the case of other countries’ students, four years of study in an economics department does not change this.

In recent years, Turkey has witnessed a new form of corporate finance in which companies, commonly called ‘Islamic’, borrow directly from lenders without using any financial intermediaries. Trust among lenders and borrowers has initiated market exchange, secured deals and lowered transaction costs. This paper claims that the base of trust in direct financing for Islamic companies should be largely attributed to the self-interest of the parties rather than just to Islam or ‘shared values’. Here we do not see an individual calculation of ‘economic man’, as argued by neo-classical economists, but individuals embedded in relations within social groups and sharing ethics of money-based relations. Second, we illustrate that self-interest based trust stems from the calculations of trusters using available information in the market about trustees. However, information asymmetry between borrowers and lenders in favour of borrowers has been a source of deep instability and abuse. Finally, the paper shows how groups have used the rhetoric of Islamic economic revival to expand the scope of transactions while trust eroded in favour of abusers. The anonymity came with thousands of investors who eroded the strength of reciprocity, surveillance and retribution in trust-based relations. This case study also illustrates that Islamic societies seek new solutions within capitalist economic systems to maximise their gains and they do not wish to be destined to live in poverty. Comparative Economic Studies (2006) 48, 132–155. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ces.8100073

Bu calismada Cumhuriyetin ilk yillarinda yayinlanmis iki calismaya dayanarak Cumhuriyet’in ilanini takip eden ilk on yildaki is hayatinin profilinin olusturulmasi hedeflenmistir. Calismanin en onemli bulgusu, Cumhuriyetin ilaninin ekonomik faaliyetlerin yapisini degistiremedigidir. Osmanli doneminde oldugu gibi hem nitelikli emek hem de girisimcilik alaninda yabancilarin egemenligi surmektedir. Iktisadi aktivitelerin faaliyet alanlari ve cografi konumlari da Osmanli doneminden farkli degildir. Ayrica, II. Mesrutiyet’ten sonra izlenen ‘Milli Iktisat’ politikalari paralelinde milli girisimci yetistirme cabalarinin olumlu sonuclari da calisma da gozlenmistir

The aim of this article is to evaluate the publication performance of economics departments’ and economists in Turkey between the years 2006-2011, and then to compare the results of this study to those of the previous period (1999-2005) in order to gain an impression of long-term trends. The comparison indicates several long-term results. First, the publication performance of economists and economics departments is improving. Second, even though there are new entries, seven research-based universities are among the top ten performers in both periods. Third, in economist rankings, the dominance of three of these, Koc, Sabanci and Bilkent, is apparent. Fourth, Turkish economists usually prefer to publish in Turkey-based journals, and publication in elite journals is limited to Koc, Sabanci, Bilkent and Bilgi universities.