On the Spread of Industry and Movie Theatres in Anatolia
06 December 2010
'Hunting Season,' a new film by Yavuz Turgul and Şener Şen - director and the leading actor of 'Muhsin Bey,' considered to be the most important film in Turkish cinema - was released this week. The film is being shown in 325 theatres throughout Turkey. Although I was attracted by the critiques of the film in the papers, I have to admit that the list of 325 movie theaters accompanying the advertisement was of much more interest to me. So I created a data set using the list of movie theatres running the movie. Then I combined the data with the data on the 1000 largest industrial enterprises in Turkey as published by the Istanbul Chamber of Industry. If we assume that the presence of movie theatres is an indicator of life quality and that the presence of large firms is an indicator of econom
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Turkey’s Growth Depends on the Normalization of SMEs
12 November 2010
The answer to the question "Why small and medium sized enterprises fail to grow?" might be more complicated than we expect. Medium Term Plan does not present the story Turkey needs for rapid growth. How this story should be, then? I believe a program that focuses on the growth problems of small and medium term enterprises has to be the backbone of Turkey's growth story. SMEs in Turkey operate exposed to abnormal conditions. It is not likely to ensure rapid growth rates without overcoming the abnormality.
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Why is the Medium Term Program not taken seriously in Turkey?
20 October 2010
The Medium Term Program (MTP) for the 2011-2013 period announced last week was welcomed warmly by the markets. I guess the impact of the MTP, which presents the estimations and policy perspectives for a period of three years, lasts only a week. I wonder how many of you will dig into the MTP and adjust your forecasts to those of the government. Not many. The reason is that the MTP is not taken seriously in Turkey.
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Turkey’s main problem is that it does not have a medium-term growth story
01 February 2010
We are about to leave behind the first decade of the second millennia A.D. We have more data to review the last decade with respect to economic performance. How do you think that the 2000's will be remembered in the future? Could Turkey write a success story in terms of economic performance over the last decade? This commentary involves a short review in the framework of these questions. After a short assessment of 1980's, 1990's and 2000's and stating five main point, I will try to voice some wishes on how 2010's will be.
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