MACROPRUDENTIAL POLICIES, PERSISTENCE OF UNCERTAINTY AND LEVERAGE DYNAMICS A STUDY FOR REAL SECTOR IN TURKEY


Tezin Türü: Doktora

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi, İşletme Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2018

Öğrenci: İBRAHİM YARBA

Danışman: ZEHRA NURAY GÜNER

Özet:

This study consists of three chapters. The first chapter analyses leverage dynamics of Turkish non-financial firms over the last 20 years using a confidential and unique firm-level dataset. Results of panel models reveal that financial development fosters corporate leverage while government indebtedness inhibits it. Both impacts are more pronounced for private firms rather than public firms. Besides, even though improvements in financial development foster long-term debt usage for both SMEs and large firms, this impact seems stronger for SMEs. Conspicuously, results reveal that SMEs suffer much more than large firms in crowding-out periods of government leverage while both SMEs and large firms benefit in crowding-in periods. The second chapter is the first study to explore the impacts of macroprudential policies (MPPs) and uncertainty of economic environment on leverage dynamics based on firm-level data. In this chapter, I construct uncertainty and persistence of uncertainty measures for economic environment in Turkey. Results reveal that credit market responds persistence of uncertainty rather than the level of uncertainty itself. Moreover, leverage of Turkish non-financial firms decrease significantly when uncertainty increases persistently and when macroprudential policy tools are tightened. Most strikingly, this is the case only for SMEs but not for large firms. In the last chapter, I attempt to unfold the riddle regarding how SMEs do survive in such an economic environment and provide significant evidence in support of the claim that Turkish corporations have some under-the-mattress savings (hidden reserves) that are utilized during the times of persistent stress and tightening of macroprudential policies.