Applied Economics for Development: Empirical Approaches to Selected Social and Economic Issues in the Transition Economies

Transition economies experience transformation of their economic system. Following the disintegration of the Soviet Union, a number of former socialist countries underwent transitions from central planning to a market economy. More generally, many rapidly growing economies undergo no less profound transformations of their economic systems.

Contrary to common misconception, the transition process cannot be simply reduced to eliminating state intervention and liberalizing the economy. Economies under transition exhibit a unique set of policy challenges. Unlike developed market economies, missing markets or market failures abound. Economic transformation takes the form of rapidly evolving patterns of international trade and investment, industrial structure and consumption. These changes call for appropriate public policies. A continuing flow of investment hinges on suitable institutions, the provision of public infrastructure and other public goods. Adequate regulation can be central in ensuring that environmental resources are sustainably managed. And sophisticated production systems, call for corresponding social institutions in terms of education, health and welfare provisions. In all these cases, accurate empirical assessments are central to the design of effective policy.

This book presents a selection of pressing economic and social issues in transition economies. Selected issues include the development of particular industrial sectors, the drivers and consequences of foreign direct investment, public finances, urbanization, social indicators, environmental policy and energy diversification. In each case an original empirical analysis is performed, using a variety of advanced quantitative methods, applied to recent data. The book will be of interest to economists studying transition economies, economic development or having a general interest in applied economics. It will be of particular interest to applied economists, policy analysts and policy makers in transition economies, concerned with the shape and direction of appropriate economic reforms.

Mahmut Zortuk, is Professor in Econometrics. He is the head of Department of Econometrics in Dumlupınar University, Turkey. He earned his PhD degree in Econometrics at Istanbul University. He was the head of the organizing committee of XIV International Symposium on Econometrics, Operations Research and Statistics. He has a long experience of academic and applied research on econometrics and institutional development in transition economies, growth markets and EU integration with various academic articles and applied research reports. He supervised several multi-disciplinary academic and applied dissertations. Sema Behdioğlu is Associate Professor in the Department of Econometrics in Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences at Dumlupınar University, Turkey. Her research focuses on quantitative methods for decision-making, including multivariate statistical methods, structural equation modeling, data envelopment analysis and mathematics. Mustafa Kemal Beşer is Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at Eskişehir Osmangazi University, Turkey. His research focuses on empirical econometrics. His work examines longitudinal macroeconomic variables with time series analysis. Yavuz Bozkurt is Associate Professor in the Department of Public Administration in Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences at Dumlupınar University, Turkey. His research focuses on local governments, urban and environmental policy. Noyan Aydın is Assistant Professor in the Department of Econometrics in Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences at Dumlupınar University, Turkey. His research focuses on multivariate statistical analysis such as logistic regression, clustering analysis, structural equation modelling and data envelopment analysis. He usually uses macroeconomic datasets in his statistical analysis' unlike the most of the studies in literature. Eylem Acar is Associate Prof. in the Department of Econometrics in Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences at Dumlupınar University, Turkey. Her research focuses on operations research, particularly multi-criteria decision-making methods, data mining and Kansei Engineering. Erkan Arı is Assistant Professor in the Department of Econometrics in Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences at Dumlupinar University, Turkey. His research focuses on multivariate statistical analysis such as logistic regression, ordinal logistic regression and structural equation modelling and data development analysis. He usually uses micro datasets in his statistical analysis unlike the most of studies in literature. Berna Hızarcı Beşer is Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Economics in Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences at Dumlupınar University, Turkey. Her research focuses on public sector economics. Her work examines the impact of taxes on tax and government revenues. Eray ACAR is Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Administration in Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences at Dumlupınar University, Turkey. His research focuses on public administration, governance. His work examines the neoliberal transformation and practices of privatization in the transition economies. Hakan ACAROĞLU is Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics in Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences at Osmangazi University, Turkey. His research focuses on human capital, child labor, education economics. His work investigates the middle income trap in the transition economies. Seyhat Bayrak Gezdim is Research Assistant and PhD candidate in the Department of Econometrics in Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences at Dumlupınar University, Turkey. Her research interests include quantile regression, longitudinal data analysis, emprical issues in tourism, oil price and environmental Kuznets curve. Semih Karacan is Research Assistant and PhD candidate in the Department of Econometrics in Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences at Dumlupınar University, Turkey. His research focuses on panel data and resampling methods. Hasan Arda Burhan is Research Assistant and PhD candidate in the Department of Econometrics in Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences at Dumlupınar University, Turkey. His research focuses on operations research, particularly multi-criteria decision-making methods and its extensions. Neslihan Çilesiz is Research Assistant and PhD candidate in the Department of Econometrics in Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences at Dumlupınar University, Turkey. Her research focuses on multivariate statistics. Her work examines evaluation of service quality. Ayşegül Yıldız is a Research Assistant and MSc candidate in the Department of Econometrics in Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences at Dumlupınar University, Turkey. Her research focuses on applied statistics, particularly structural equation modelling. Fadime Çelik is a Research Assistant and MSc candidate in the Department of Econometrics in Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences at Dumlupınar University, Turkey. Her research focuses on applied statistics, especially neural network models.