IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/wdevel/v175y2024ics0305750x23002929.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is there a virtuous cycle between wages and productivity? Turkish experience after the transition to democracy

Author

Listed:
  • Taymaz, Erol
  • Voyvoda, Ebru
  • Yilmaz, Kamil

Abstract

We analyze the behavior of plant-level real wages and productivity in Turkish manufacturing after the transition to democracy in 1987 and test for the direction of the causality between these two variables. The Turkish experience is almost an experimental case because successive governments after 1987 let real wages increase rapidly under the pressure of intensifying political competition. Real wages in state-owned enterprises increased by nearly 200% from 1988 to 1993, followed by a 130% increase in real wages in private manufacturing. Our analysis shows that labor and total factor productivity increased at an unprecedented rate during the same period in response to the exogenous wage hikes. Econometric estimates provide strong empirical evidence supporting the hypothesis that there is a bi-directional relationship between wages and productivity, and wage increases do not reduce surplus because the increase in productivity (value added per worker) compensates for increasing wages.

Suggested Citation

  • Taymaz, Erol & Voyvoda, Ebru & Yilmaz, Kamil, 2024. "Is there a virtuous cycle between wages and productivity? Turkish experience after the transition to democracy," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:175:y:2024:i:c:s0305750x23002929
    DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2023.106474
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X23002929
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.worlddev.2023.106474?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Democratic transition; Real wages; Labor productivity; Total factor productivity; Labor unions; Long-run growth;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:175:y:2024:i:c:s0305750x23002929. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.