Regional disparity is one of the important characteristics of the Turkish economy. This study examines the impact of market potential on the regional differences in Turkey by investigating wages in the manufacturing industry for 1987 and 2000. Evidence suggests that market potential is an important determinant of inequality in Turkey. In addition, public–private decomposition reshapes the dispersion of wages supportive of rising heterogeneity in the private manufacturing industry. This increases the explanatory power of market potential, which is observed to be high in western Turkey and diminishes toward eastern Turkey. Our findings highlight that during the postliberalization era of the 1980s, Turkey's regional inequality concern transformed into a structural problem which can be explained by provincial market potential. Moreover, our results underline that the modern geography framework, which has been tested for developed economies, is able to elucidate the regional differences in a developing country suffering from persistent imbalances.

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Theoretical models and empirical studies focus on, in general, local characteristics such as centripetal or centrifugal forces to explain regional differences in economic activities. However, how the technological characteristics of the economic activities affect the location choice are critical issues. The paper defines four types of industries based on the relation between regional distribution and selected technology indicators to explore the changes in industrial structure of the regions over the periods before and after 2008. The findings reveal that, in spite of the short period covered, it is possible to observe some changes using the industry types we defined.

This paper investigates causality relations among exports, foreign direct investment and economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. A new panel-data causality testing approach is developed in the article, which is based on Bayesian estimation of Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) systems. The study covers the period between 1970 and 2017 and tests for both unidirectional and bidirectional causality relations for a group of 13 Sub-Saharan African countries. Findings suggest a direct, one-period-ahead, unidirectional causality from exports to GDP growth in Burkina Faso, Madagascar, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal and Sierra Leone. Test results provide evidence of growth-led exports in Benin, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya and Niger. This study also provides valuable insights into causality relations between FDI and economic growth, and exports and FDI pairs.

Turkey recently launched a set of structural reforms to address elimination of producer price subsidies in its agriculture, and replacing them with a targeted direct income transfer program. The paper investigates analytically viable options of the proposed agricultural-cum-fiscal reform and analyzes the formal links between the public sector fiscal balances, accumulation patterns, dynamic resource allocation, and consumer welfare under a medium-long-term horizon. We utilize a dynamic general equilibrium model. The model results suggest that even though there are expected modest welfare gains of consumers' intertemporal efficiency, the repercussions of these policies on the rural economy and aggregate gross domestic product are likely to be deflationary.