Alumni

Dr. Mehmet Guney Celbis

Thesis:
Regional policies: convergence, trade and the allocation of public capital

Year: 2015

Promotor(s):
Joan Muysken, Peter Nijkamp & Denis de Crombrugghe

Abstract:
This dissertation presents four research papers. While three of these studies focus on the Turkish regional economies, one of them presents a meta-analysis on primary studies which in turn use data from all over the world. Each of these papers focuses on one of the following topics: convergence, trade, and the spatial allocation of public capital. The thesis presents novel evidence that public internet infrastructure increases the speed of convergence of a regional economy to its steady-state. Regarding trade, the results suggest that contrary to the theoretical assumption of symmetry, empirical research has generally estimated that infrastructure enhances exports more than it does imports. Results also point out to specific trade-related infrastructures and their roles in regional exports. The thesis also finds that infrastructure allocation in Turkey has been influenced by the political distances of regions to the central government during the period 1999-2011. Finally, the thesis reconciled a valuable regional output series for Turkey which was not previously available.

Selected publications by Mehmet Guney Celbis

UNU-MERIT