Open Knowledge Repository

Error fetching community

Items in this collection

Now showing 1 - 10 of 295

Economic, Trade, and Industry Implications of the Circular Economy Transition in Türkiye
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-01-21) World Bank
Economic and population growth over the past 50 years have increased global natural resource use to levels that severely affect human well-being. In Türkiye, as elsewhere, economic and population growth have been accompanied by increasing levels of material consumption and waste. The need to transition away from current linear resource use patterns is conceptualized and promoted within the circular economy (CE) concept. Türkiye recognizes that it must transition to a more circular and material-efficient growth model. Türkiye launched its zero-waste initiative in 2017, and the CE is flagged as a priority in the 2021 economic reform program. A successful CE transition in Türkiye will also help the European Union (EU) achieve its CE goals of enhancing material efficiency and reducing environmental impact. A significant portion of the EU’s material consumption and footprint is based on imports, with 11 percent of domestic material consumption and nearly 36 percent of the total footprint being imported. This report highlights the importance of a deliberate, strategic, and articulated approach toward transitioning the Turkish economy to a CE, blending immediate actionable steps with a forward-looking long-term strategy. By moving forward with flexibility and vision, Türkiye can use its distinct advantages to not only respond to the changing global economy but also to lead in sustainable innovation and resilience, establishing a model for others in the worldwide move toward a more circular and thriving future.
Türkiye’s Circular Economy Transition in the EU’s Global Value Chain Ecosystem
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-01-17) World Bank
This report examines the transition of Turkish firms to align with circular economy (CE) principles, highlighting both immediate needs and the longer-term opportunities from engaging in a transition agenda. The report stresses that the changing landscape toward the CE in the European Union (EU) offers a significant strategic opportunity for Türkiye to strengthen its position in global markets and build resilience against economic shocks.
Offshore Wind Development Program: Offshore Wind Roadmap for Türkiye
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-11-25) World Bank
This roadmap provides strategic analysis of the offshore wind development potential in Türkiye, considering the opportunities and challenges under different, hypothetical, growth scenarios. It is intended to provide evidence to support the Government of Türkiye in establishing policy, regulations, processes, and infrastructure to enable successful growth of this new industry.
Türkiye Economic Monitor, March 2024: On the Right Tack
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-06-03) World Bank
Türkiye’s economic policies helped quickly recover from the COVID pandemic. The policies being implemented since late 2021 were built on loose monetary policy, prudent fiscal policy, boosting exports and employment, and managed to deliver strong GDP growth in 2022. These policies, -in addition to the rise in energy prices amid geopolitical tensions and the global monetary tightening cycle-, however also led to a very rapid increase in inflation, a widening of the current account deficit and the decline in the reserves which in turn affected investors’ risk perception adversely and increased macro financial pressures in the run up to the May 2023 elections. As a consequence, the growth momentum also slowed down starting from the second half of 2022. Following the elections, the new government started a process of normalization in macroeconomic policies in 2023H2 with an emphasis on tightening monetary policy to achieve disinflation. The monetary policy rate hikes, ongoing simplification in the macroprudential policy framework, and the correction in the exchange rate since May 2023 have helped to gradually rebuild confidence in the economy, and the tax hikes have helped reduce the fiscal deficit. The impact of the new policy framework has started to be reflected in the reduction in risk premia, realignment of interest rates, strengthening in foreign exchange reserves, and the improvements in the assessment of credit rating agencies.
Türkiye at the Frontier: Human Capital Utilization, Jobs and Equity - Technical Diagnostic
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-05-07) World Bank
Türkiye’s early human capital foundations have paved the way for poverty reduction and labor force participation, today facing new multi-dimensional challenges. Türkiye’s investments have historically helped diversify and increase aggregate growth, propelling it to upper middle-income status. Yet relative to overall growth more recently, human capital utilization in terms of jobs has not necessarily kept pace. Over half the population remains either out of the labor force or employed in informal, relatively low-paying jobs, most of whom have been women. Economic vulnerabilities remain following the Coronavirus pandemic (COVID) and the 2023 earthquakes in southeastern Türkiye, compounded by long-term effects of global financial crises and regional conflicts since 2008. Helping vulnerable workers, largely comprising women, adapt to a changing labor market will be needed to sustain a broad, productive workforce for future broad-based growth. As Türkiye embarks on its forthcoming Twelfth Five-Year National Development Plan, a diagnostic of human capital and jobs programs and policies in terms of gender equity is timely for informing future needs. In addition, a review of Türkiye’s experience will equally help provide global knowledge for other countries facing similar challenges. This note aims to assess human capital utilization in terms of inclusive jobs and gender equity in Türkiye towards broadening economic resilience following shocks.
Supporting Education for Recovery from the Earthquake Emergency: Policy Note
(Washington, DC, 2023-10-25) World Bank
The recent earthquakes in 11 provinces in Türkiye affected the learning of more than 5 million students. The natural disasters occurred during a global economic contraction and regional conflicts just after special circumstances caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. These challenges resulted in learning losses, emotional and psychosocial damages with expensive economic consequences that is estimated at more than 3.5 percent reduction in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) annually if not tackled carefully and in a timely manner. These challenges require policy decisions to protect the education system and the learning and skills assets given the political commitment to build back better. This report (i) quantified the challenges, (ii) evaluated the immediate steps taken since the 6th of February by the Ministry of National Education (MoNE) and proposes an emergency response system that can be deployed during future disasters and crises, and (iii) recommends a roadmap to support the education system for recovery from the earthquake emergency. The roadmap focuses on the earthquake regions and consists of (i) institutionalizing of an integrated national program targeting education and care aiming at a strong head start for 3-, 4- and 5-years old children and support to mothers and families; (ii) supporting green and resilient reconstruction to provide a learning environment for all children; (iii) establishing a learning catching up program for acceleration and support towards learning and wellbeing of vulnerable groups; (iv) securing the skills asset for improved production and economic growth with a futuristic vision towards green and technological innovations aiming at signature programs in general secondary, vocational education, professional and higher education focusing on the skilling and reskilling agendas; and finally (v) establishing a national center of excellence for education management in emergencies.
The Macroeconomic Implications of a Transition to Zero Net Emissions: A Modeling Framework
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-03) Hallegatte, Stephane; McIsaac, Florent; Dudu, Hasan; Jooste, Charl; Knudsen, Camilla; Beck, Hans; Knudsen, Camilla
Analyzing the macroeconomic consequences of a transition to a net-zero economy creates specific modeling challenges, including those related to the non-marginal nature of the required transformation, the role of technologies, and the replacement of fossil fuel-based assets with greener ones. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a hybrid modeling approach that starts from a set of sectoral techno-economic scenarios to construct an illustrative resilient and net-zero decarbonization trajectory. It then assesses the macroeconomic implications by linking sectoral dynamics to two macroeconomic frameworks: a multisector general equilibrium framework and an aggregate macrostructural model. This approach combines the advantages of multiple tools and captures the various dimensions of the transition, including the need to tackle simultaneously multiple market failures beyond the carbon externality. The paper illustrates this methodology with Türkiye’s objective to reach net zero emissions by 2053. The multisector general equilibrium framework suggests that the transition could contribute positively to Türkiye’s economic growth despite the large investment needs, especially when indirect mitigation benefits are taken into account and if labor market frictions can be reduced. Improved energy efficiency in the transportation and building sectors drives the growth benefits in the short and medium terms. The growth benefits depend on how transition investments are financed: if they crowd out other productive investments, the benefits are significantly reduced and can even become slightly negative in the long term. The macrostructural model focuses on implications for public debt and the current account, using two extreme scenarios in which additional investments are triggered by higher productivity or a set of budget-neutral incentives (taxes and subsidies). The model concludes that the transition would have moderate impacts on the current account and public debt. With budget-neutral incentives, there is a small increase in gross domestic product (GDP) growth, the debt-to-GDP ratio increases by 1 to 3 percent, and the current account remains unchanged thanks to the reduction in fuel imports.
From Middle Class to Poverty: The Unequal Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Developing Countries
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-02) Viollaz, Mariana; Duque, Daniel; Diaz-Bonilla, Carolina; Newhouse, David; Weber, Michael
This study combines pre-COVID-19 household surveys with 2020 macro data to simulate changes in household economic welfare and poverty rates through job losses, labor income changes, and non-labor (remittance) income changes during 2020 in Brazil, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, South Africa, and Türkiye. It first presents an in-depth analysis of employment elasticities projections—a critical input in microsimulations—for 15 developing countries. In 11 of the 15 countries, employment estimates for 2020 based on elasticities were within 5 percent of the actual employment level, but in four countries, where the labor markets were more disrupted by the pandemic, the projections considerably underestimated job losses due to the crisis. The study then presents the simulation results for the five countries, which show declines in per capita household income or consumption across the distribution, a decline in the middle class, and increased poverty, but no other clear pattern of impacts across the different quintiles. Finally, data from Brazil indicate that the simulation underestimated the magnitude of the shock throughout the distribution, especially for the wealthy, because it underestimated declines in earnings.
Türkiye Adaptation and Resilience Assessment: A Whole-of-Economy Approach to Climate and Disaster Risks - Green Growth Analytical and Advisory Program Thematic Paper 2
(Washington, DC, 2023) World Bank
This report provides an assessment of adaptation and resilience (A&R) preparedness in Türkiye and the enabling policy, institutional, and macrofiscal environment. It presents a review of Türkiye’s development,disaster risk management (DRM), and climate change adaptation-related policies, plans, and programs, and identifies priority areas and interventions for further reducing vulnerability and strengthening national resilience to climate change, natural disasters, and other related external shocks. It aims to inform and support Türkiye’s efforts to transition to a green economy and build resilience to climate shocks and disasters, while enabling a rapid, resilient, and inclusive recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The assessment builds on the close and long-lasting engagement between the government of Türkiye and the World Bank Group and informs the Country Climate and Development Report. The assessment offers a whole-of-government perspective on priority areas for adaptation and resilience that can inform ongoing and planned national climate and development policy processes. Over 150 indicators were selected, assessed, and rated as nascent, emerging, orestablished through a traffic light system (TLS) using the World Bank’s Adaptation Principles framework to evaluate readiness and identify gaps in capacity and areas for further policy development around six principles and a set of priority actions for effective climate adaptation and resilience in Türkiye.
Refugees and Housing: Evidence from the Mortgage Market
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2022-12-06) Akgündüz, Yusuf Emre; Hacıhasanoglu, Yavuz Selim; Yilmaz, Fatih
This paper investigates the impact of large-scale Syrian refugee inflows on the Turkish housing market. Employing a micro-level data set of the population of mortgaged houses in Türkiye between 2010 and 2017, it identifies the dynamic effects using a difference-in-differences approach. As the regional distribution of Syrian refugees is presumably not exogenous, it is instrumented in the estimations. The instrument is constructed using the distance from Turkish provinces to each Syrian region, while weighting each Syrian region by their population and distance to Türkiye compared to other destination countries. The results show that house prices increased in response to the arrival of Syrian refugees. The effects are mostly driven by low-priced housing and faded after 2014. The results further show that construction permits and sales increased, while the average age of purchased houses declined, indicating an increase in supply that may explain the fading-out effect over time. Finally, the findings provide suggestive evidence that houses that are sold after the arrival of refugees decline in size, which further points to a squeeze in the housing market for natives.