Papers written as an M.A. student at Duke University, 2014 - 2016
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"Transition Economies Corruption in the Health Care Markets", supervised by Charles Becker (Duke)
I study the corruption in the health care market of transition economies based on the Life in Transition Survey 2010. The objective of the study is to analyze factors that affect people's tendency to make unofficial payments while receiving health services, and estimate factors that determine people's satisfaction from health care service in a cross-country setting. The survey is conducted in 35 countries, of which a majority are former Soviet and then formerly Socialist countries. However, this survey also allows comparison of these transition countries with a range of European countries, including Italy, Sweden, England, and Turkey. Unlike the studies that are mostly either descriptive or that analyze only one country, this paper instead provides a rigorous analysis of corruption in health care markets in 35 countries. Estimation results show that age and education level are significant on predicting the peoples' tendency to making unofficial payments when receiving health services, and their satisfaction levels from the health services. In addition, GDP per capita, total health expenditure as a percentage of GDP, and unemployment rates are also found to be statistically significant determinants of making unofficial payments and satisfaction with health services.
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"Impact of Economic Policies on the Countries' Public Debt Burden During Financial Crisis: Comparative Analysis of Turkey and Latin American Countries ", supervised by Kent Kimbrough (Duke)
This paper studies the effects of economic and political changes in the countries’ debt to GDP ratio during financial crisis. The main objective of the paper is to analyze the role of economic policies on the public debt burden of countries, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Turkey, during financial crisis. In addition to the similarities in the financial crises, the similarities in the political instabilities of these countries are the main reasons for comparison. I use quarterly data for the period 1990- 2014.
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"Distributional Weights Approach in Cost-Benefit Analysis", supervised by Matthew Adler (Duke)
Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) measures the economic efficiency of a project, regulation or policy by converting all values into monetary terms. The objective of CBA is to make policy recommendations. The main focus of this study is to present the distributional weights approach of CBA, two alternative approaches of CBA, Traditional or Standard Approach, and Basic Needs Approach, are presented as well.
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"Financial Inclusion Rate of Turkey: The Effects of Political Institutions on the Unbanked Population of Turkey ", supervised by Timur Kuran (Duke)
The financial inclusion rate of countries has captured the interest of many scholars and policymakers, especially in recent years. This paper studies the historical changes of the financial inclusiveness rate of Turkey. The main objective of the paper is to analyze the role of pre-existing institutions, government policies, the effects of political competition as well as the effects of the supply of and the demand for financial services on Turkey’s unbanked population’s behavior.