The impact of the liberalization program on the price-cost margin and investment of Turkey's manufacturing sector after 1980

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the structural consequences of the post-1980 outward-orientation on the market concentration and accumulation patterns in the Turkish manufacturing industries. Using various panel data procedures over twenty-nine subsectors of Turkish manufacturing for the 1980-1996 period, we focus on three sets of issues: (1) the effect of openness on the extent of market concentration as measured in CR4 ratios; (2) the behavior of gross profit margins (markups) in relation to openness, concentration ratios, and real wage costs; and (3) the behavior of sectoral real investments (by destination) in relation to the profit margins, real wage costs, and the openness indicator. Our results suggest very little structural change in the sectoral composition and nature of market concentration and behavior of profit margins under the post-1980 structural adjustment reforms and outward-orientation. We find that, contrary to expectations, "openness" had very little impact, if any, on profit margins (markups), and, within manufacturing, the trade-adjusting sectors reveal a positive relationship between the profit margins and openness. Profit margins are found to be positively and significantly related to concen- © 2002 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved.