A deep paper -- that popped into my head as I was perusing S. Durlauf's recent essay on meritocracy. The paper raises a broader question: how to be meritocratic when there is uncertainty about the relative weights of luck and effort in individuals' production function?
www.tse-fr.eu/sites/defaul...

Very intuitive explanation for the puzzle we observe in Istanbul as well. I bet the extremes are even worser in Turkey b/c of very lax labor regulations in a static world. But labot mobility is also way higher in Turkey so I am not sure in the long run

half the super hyped up "tech" crap of late isn't even really tech at all. food delivery, taxis, Theranos, etc. crypto is just unregulated finance

Batı, dünyayı sömürdüğü için mi kalkındı yoksa kalkındığı için mi sömürebildi? Alper H. Yağcı, 2 Ocak 2025 Evet, sorumuz büyük ve zor; yazı uzun. Hazırlık için önce terimlerimizi tanımlayalım.  “Kalkınmadan” kastımız teknolojik ve ekonomik. Devrinin en gelişm…

Alper hoca @yagcialper.bsky.social sömürgecilik ve kalkınma ilişkisi üstune cok ilginç bir yazı yazmış. Benim gibi ekonomik deterministlere (sömurgecilik sonuçtur diyenler) karşı argumanlarını ve delillerini çok net ifade etmiş. Kolay da okunuyor:
alperyagci.com/bati-dunyayi...

Hasan Tekgüç ve Değer Eryar'ın, vergilerin ve sosyal harcamaların gelir eşitsizliği üzerindeki etkisini inceledikleri yeni makaleleri yayımlanmış.

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Yoksulluk, Eşitsizlik & Vergiler on X: "Turkey has always been an unequal country but the increase in inequality in 2021 and 2022 is unprecedented. High inflation environment of post-2020 has led to a rapid upward redistribution. https://t.co/Oem3LCfnZb" / X Turkey has always been an unequal country but the increase in inequality in 2021 and 2022 is unprecedented. High inflation environment of post-2020 has led to a rapid upward redistribution. https://t.co/Oem3LCfnZb

What about the post 2019 period? It is very different. Unprecedented increase in inequality in Turkey. Our most recent work-in-progress:
x.com/point_khas/s...
@cemoyvat.bsky.social @yagcialper.bsky.social

(iv) Enlarging access to healthcare & social assistance budget are the only deliberate inequality reducing AKP policies. The downside is that most of the decline in inequality is due to unintended causes. Their impact is likely run its course, i.e. AKP was lucky!

(iii) Public education spending became more equalizing over time b/c of decline in fertility! A increasing share of education spending is mechanically directed to lower income households due to their higher fertility. This effect is in spite of government's actual policies.

(i) In Turkey pension system is the biggest equalizer. Early retirement laws of 1990s contributed inequality reduction in 2000s but regressive pension reforms of 2008 has not yet taken effect. (ii) Ongoing modernization of economy means more income tax payers.

We show that the cumulative impact of taxes and social transfers became more equalizing during these years. Given the ideological bent of Erdogan governments, how do we account for this unexpected finding? We make a distinction btw policymakers' intent & timing of impacts.

Redistribution Trends in Turkey: Unintended Consequences vs. Deliberate Policies We investigate the impact of taxes, transfers, and social spending on inequality in Turkey during the first two decades of the 21st century. We employ Household Budget Surveys from 2003, 2007, 2011, ...

Our new paper (with Değer Eryar of IEU) is published in Review of Development Economics. We investigate the inequality and poverty impact of taxes, transfers and social spending for Turkey between 2003-2019. The paper is open access:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Did not know that Dierdre McCloskey was on Claudia Goldin's dissertation committee; her comments here are interesting, and hopefully will get more people to read Nancy Folbre and Julie Nelson: