Scopus

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://ada.atilim.edu.tr/handle/123456789/19

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Citation Count: 0
Card spending dynamics in Turkey during the COVID-19 pandemic
(Central Bank Republic Turkey, 2021) Kantur, Zeynep; Özcan, Gülserim; Economics
This paper provides an extensive analysis of card spending during the COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey by using weekly aggregated and sectoral credit and debit card spending data from March 2014 to December 2020. At an aggregated level, we show that aggregate demand decreases significantly at the early stages of COVID-19 and seems to reinstate its pre-COVID trend. However, when we include the pre-existing conditions of Turkey, the 2018 currency crisis, we observe that the recovery in demand is not that strong. To highlight the underlying reasons for structural change in aggregate demand, we estimate the model with stringency index and unemployment-related search index. The estimated model indicates that containment measures and restrictions and fear of job/income loss mainly explain the overall impact of COVID-19 on aggregate demand. We also examined sectoral data to understand aggregate demand dynamics better. Only stable and delayable sector groups have reached a trend above their pre-pandemic trajectories. However, the social and work-related sectors are far from their respective pre-pandemic trend.
Citation Count: 2
Dissecting Turkish inflation: theory, fact, and illusion
(Springer, 2022) Kantur, Zeynep; Ozcan, Gulserim; Economics
The policy debate in Turkey over the impact of interest rate on inflation concerns the question of what policymakers should do when faced with volatile and high inflation. Motivated by this discussion, we provide an empirical analysis by connecting the cost channel to the Phillips relation. Our findings prove the existence of the cost channel. However, other determinants of inflation -labor share of income, prices of imported inputs, and consumption goods -dominate the cost channel in Turkey.
Citation Count: 1
Macroprudential policies and current account balance
(Elsevier, 2022) Ozcan, Guelserim; Ekinci, Mehmet Fatih; Economics
Macroprudential policies have become essential tools for policymakers to maintain financial stability. We investigate the impact of macroprudential policies on the current account balance, considering the link between external imbalances and financial stability. Building on a panel VAR model, we further document that usage of a macroprudential instrument is associated with an improvement in the current account balance. Our findings suggest that the positive impact of macroprudential policy measures on the current account balance is more substantial in the deficit countries. (c) 2022 Economic Society of Australia, Queensland. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Citation Count: 0
MODEL UNCERTAINTY AND FINANCIAL FRICTIONS: IMPLICATIONS FOR OPTIMAL MONETARY POLICY
(World Scientific, 2024) Kantur,Z.; Özcan,G.; Economics
The last decades proved that policymaking without considering uncertainty is impracticable. In an environment of uncertainty, policymakers have doubts about the policy models they routinely use. This paper focuses specifically on the situation where uncertainty on the financial side of the economy leads to misspecification in the policy model. We describe a coherent strategy for policymakers who are averse to model misspecification and analyze optimal policy design in the face of Knightian uncertainty. To do so, we augment a financial dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with model misspecification in a simple minimax framework where the central bank plays a zero-sum game versus a hypothetical evil agent. The policy is tailored to insure against the worstcase outcomes. We show that model ambiguity on the financial side requires a passive monetary policy stance. However, if the uncertainty originates from the supply side of the economy, an aggressive response of interest rate is required. We also show the impact of an additional macroprudential tool on the dynamics of the economy. © 2024 World Scientific Publishing Company.
Citation Count: 0
Optimal robust monetary and fiscal policy under uncertainty on the lower bound
(Elsevier, 2024) Ozcan, Gulserim; Traficante, Guido; Economics
This paper studies robust policy when the policymaker has Knightian uncertainty about the exact position of the effective lower bound (ELB). First, we characterize optimal discretionary policy when a benevolent policymaker controls the nominal interest rate and the level of government spending. Compared to the full information case, an uncertainty -averse policymaker overestimates the level of the ELB, thereby triggering a more aggressive reduction in the nominal interest rate prior to the liquidity trap. Furthermore, the anticipation of a larger increase in public spending improves the trade-off between inflation and the output gap, and dampens the perceived worst -case level of the ELB. As a result, a less conservative fiscal stabilization is desirable to address the uncertainty concerns of the policymaker by partially substituting for the nominal interest rate at the ELB. Moreover, an inflation -conservative policymaker mitigates the impact of uncertainty on equilibrium outcomes even better than a fiscally active policymaker.
Citation Count: 5
What pandemic inflation tells: Old habits die hard
(Elsevier Science Sa, 2021) Kantur, Zeynep; Ozcan, Gulserim; Economics
COVID-19 has led to changes in individuals' consumption habits, which will cause the calculation of inflation based on the average consumption basket to give distorted information. Using debit and credit card spending data of Turkey, we build CPI weights and compute an alternative pandemic consumption basket price index for Jan 2020-Feb 2021. Our findings show that the pandemic inflation is higher than the official inflation rate during the first lockdown, suggesting a behavioral change in consumption. However, in the reopening period, old habits come back. During the second lockdown, the difference between the pandemic and the official inflation rates is trivial in comparison with the first lockdown. (C) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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Browsing Scopus by Author "Akbal, Gülserim Özcan"