Research

PUBLICATIONS

Women Empowerment Through Compulsory Schooling Reform: the Case of Türkiye, In: Pursuing Sustainable Development Goals (2024), IU Press, pp:143-168 (with E. Usta)

Syrian Refugees and Human Capital Accumulation of Working-age Native Children in Turkey, Journal of Human Capital (2023), 17(4), pp:557-592 (with S. Çakır & M. Kırdar)

The Effect of Covid-19 on Primary School Enrollments: Evidence from Turkey, In: Post Covid Era: Future of Economies and World Order (2023), IU Press, pp: 201-210

WORKING PAPERS

All the Missing Ladies: Political Selection in High-stakes Contests, (with S. Çakır & K. Matakos)

Abstract: How does political selection respond when the electoral stakes increase? Who gets to represent us? We study the effect that changes in the intensity of electoral competition has on women’s political representation in Turkey. We leverage occurrence of two consecutive legislative elections within few months as a natural experiment giving rise to a DiD strategy which allows us to identify JDP’s changes in its list composition and rank as a response to heightened competition. We find that the latter led to a wholesale removal and demotion of women candidates from its lists, bucking the previous trend of increasing female representation. Heterogeneity analysis further reveals that most of the women candidates were removed from electable seats and safe (conservative) districts. While this is consistent with theories of statistical discrimination, the removal of women even from inconsequential positions also reveals taste-based discrimination that has a compounding effect. A counterfactual exercise shows that had lists remained unchanged between the two elections, JDP’s female representation in parliament would have been up by 50%, thus highlighting the role that intra-party politics play in exacerbating gender-based discrimination own-gender bias in political selection.

Prolonged Guesthood: The Effects of Syrian Refugees on Voting Behavior in Turkey, (with E. Usta)

Abstract: Following the onset of the Syrian humanitarian crisis, millions of Syrians sought refuge in Turkey with the hope of returning home when the conflict subsides. A decade later, 3.2 million Syrians live in Turkey under temporary protection status and their prolonged presence initiated a nationalist and anti-refugee sentiment. This study investigates the effect of Syrian refugee inflow on the voting behavior of natives focusing on parliamentary elections between 2002-2023 in Turkey. We utilize administrative data at the provincial level, employ a difference-in-differences strategy for the identification and distance-based instrumental variable to account for the endogenous refugee settlement. We find a positive and significant effect of refugees on the far-right nationalistic party’s (MHP) vote share, while there are no effects on the vote share of the incumbent party (AKP) and the main opposition party (CHP). Although MHP’s stance is not explicitly anti-refugee and has an alliance with incumbent AKP (announced the open-door policy), the increased support for the far-right party can be explained through the perceived threat that natives experienced especially after 2015 due to increased polarization and extraordinary times that the country went through (attempted coup; change of government system; Covid-19 pandemic; worsening economic conditions). In the context of a non-Western developing country, these findings resonate with the globalization-related shocks and the surge of populism and anti-refugee parties in the West.

WORK IN PROGRESS

The Effect of Parental Education on the Early Childhood Development: Causal Evidence from Turkey

Intergenerational Mobility and Inequality: Great Gatsby Curve for Education