Economic Policy Uncertainty in Turkey
37 Pages Posted: 14 Jan 2019
There are 2 versions of this paper
Economic Policy Uncertainty in Turkey
Economic Policy Uncertainty in Turkey
Date Written: December 2018
Abstract
Uncertainty over economic policy plays a key role in economic outcomes. But evidence and quantification for emerging markets are elusive because of measurement and reverse causality issues. In this paper, we construct a news-based economic policy uncertainty (EPU) index for Turkey and assess how it affects Turkish firms. To disentangle the issues of endogeneity and reverse causality, we use a difference-in-differences approach, exploiting the fact that firms with a high share of irreversible investment are more exposed to policy uncertainty. In sectors with large irreversible investment EPU has a greater effect on growth, investment, and leverage. The results are robust to different definitions of investment irreversibility, lag structure, and selection of sectors.
Keywords: Turkey, Europe, Policy uncertainty, economic uncertainty, firm-level, sector-level, investment decisions, employment growth, leverage strategies, diff-in-diff estimation, General, General, General Outlook and Conditions, General
JEL Classification: D20, D80, E22, E66, L20, M51
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation