The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors affecting information technology usage behavior of tax office employees in the Black Sea Region of Turkey. To accomplish this purpose, the data is gathered from 133 tax office employees who work in Black Sea Region of Turkey through a questionnaire that is formed with 5-point Likert-type scale. Research model is developed in the light of Theory of Reasoned Action, and a series of analyses is conducted. The predicted hypotheses are tested thought regression analyses. According to results, intention of tax office employees has the high predictive power on information technology usage. Additionally, attitude and subjective norms of tax office employees have an impact on their intention towards information technology usage. However, their attitude has the more predictive power than their subjective norms on their intentions towards information technology usage.

Keywords:Information Technology, Tax Office Employee, Reasoned Action, Intention, Attitude, Subjective Norm

In general, governments attempt to prepare balanced budgets. But countries’ specific economic conditions often lead to politicians to prepare budgets with deficits. However, if the economic policies can not be sustained, economic crisis become unavoidable. There is a causal relationship between tax revenues and increase in public expenditures. This relation could take the form of tax-spend or spend-tax, or both instruments could be synchronized. This study examines Turkey’s budget in respect to taxation and public expenditures. Examination of data for 1924-2009 suggests that it is better first to collect tax revenues and then plan the public spending program.

Keywords:Tax-spend, Spend-tax, Fiscal Synchronization, Cointegration

In this study, relative importance of factors affecting student satisfaction in the context of e-learning are examined. Following a detailed literature review on student satisfaction on e-learning, a model was proposed explaining student satisfaction in the context of e-learning. The factors included in the model are grouped under five headings, formed by fifteen sub-factors. These sub factors are, student-instructor interaction, student’s level of computer usage, student’s attitude towards computer use, instructor’s interest in e-learning, quality of course materials, traceability of student’s development, ease of use of the e-learning system, accessibility to system, quality of interaction with the system, quality, flexibility, currency of the materials, university support services, student tracking and course management. A questionnaire was carried out on 562 students attending to e-learning programs at various levels in order to test the proposed research model. Exploratory factor analysis suggested that the ten factors solution was a better solution than fifteen factors solution. Furthermore, regression analysis findings indicated that only six of the ten factors tend to influence student satisfaction in e-learning.

Keywords:Customer satisfaction, Information Systems, E-learning student satisfaction, exploratory factor analysis regression analysis.

Unemployment rates, also swiftly rising by the effect of 2008 crisis, are one of the most important macro-economic problems in most of the countries. This problem brings about domestic demand constriction and slowdown in economic growth. Unless a solution is found, long-lasting high unemployment rates may result in some significant social and economic costs. In order to solve this problem, states try to develop and apply different policies. Exports and foreign direct investments may be important solution instruments to decline unemployment. In this study, the effect of export and foreign direct investments on unemployment was analysed by boundary test approach with three different models by using the data of the period 2000:Q1-2011:Q1. As a result of the analysis, it was seen that series are in co-integrated relationship. According to the empirical evidences, in long term, export and foreign direct investments have a declining effect on unemployment and the influence of export is higher. In short term analysis, error correction terms of the models was found statistically significant and negative, that is, the deviation in short term among the series disappears in long term.

Keywords:Employment, Exportation, Foreign Direct Investment, Turkey.

The main aim of this paper is to investigate on banking crises which stemming from asymmetric knowledge problems in financial system. Asymmetric information and its related problems have a great influence on the functioning of financial markets. Finance literature underlines that banking firms are special intermediaries due to systemic risk concerns. In post liberalization interest rate tends to rise and moral hazard and adverse selection problem exist at firm level in banking business because of lack of adequate supervision. As is typically argued, unless liberalization is accompanied by sufficient prudential supervision of the banking sector, it will result in excessive risk taking by financial intermediaries and a subsequent crisis. In this paper excessive risk taking behavior of banking firms analyze with using a theoretical framework of New Keynesian that the “credit rationing model” offers, and moral hazard, adverse selections problems causing bank failure are discussed.

Keywords:Banking Crises, Asymmetric Knowledge, Excessive Risk Taking, Credit Rationing, Banking Firm

Instead of making R&D expenditures, developing countries generally obtain technology either directly by transferring technology or indirectly by importing technology contained commodities. In this study, using the Turkey’s case, the relationship between foreign trade and economic growth is investigated in terms of knowledge transfer through foreign trade for the period 1989-2009. Using Johansen cointegration method and VAR methodology, the effect of knowledge transfer through foreign trade on economic growth is investigated in terms of direction and dimension. The estimations reveal that knowledge transfer through capital and intermediate goods imports has no significant effect on economic growth of Turkey in the period investigated. Comparisons of variables show that the effect of knowledge transfer through less knowledge contained intermediate goods imports is higher than the effect of knowledge transfer through high knowledge contained capital goods imports. This result implies that Turkey should import more capital goods and have enough human capital to use technology within capital goods.

Keywords:Foreign Trade, Economic Growth, Knowledge Transfer, Johansen Cointegration Test, VAR Analysis

A developing country like Pakistan is heavily dependent on the oil as inputs for almost every industrial sector therefore increase in oil prices, increases inputs cost, consequently increasing production costs and unemployment rate. Existing literature has mostly focused on the relationship between unemployment and oil prices of developed countries, the current study used the data from developing country Pakistan to investigate the relationship between oil prices and unemployment. The current study used monthly data from the period 1991:01–2010:12, making 238 observations of each variable for analysis and employed Toda Yamamoto causality test. The results of current study suggested the significant effect of oil prices on unemployment but found no significant association between real interest rate and unemployment, thus findings of current study are partially consistent with the efficiency wage model. Furthermore, results suggest that real oil prices cause significant changes in the real interest rate in Pakistan. It can be concluded from the results that oil prices can be used in long run to improve the forecasting of unemployment and real interest rate.

Keywords:Oil prices, Interest rate, Unemployment, Efficiency Wage Model, Toda-Yamamoto

A developing country like Pakistan is heavily dependent on the oil as inputs for almost every industrial sector therefore increase in oil prices, increases inputs cost, consequently increasing production costs and unemployment rate. Existing literature has mostly focused on the relationship between unemployment and oil prices of developed countries, the current study used the data from developing country Pakistan to investigate the relationship between oil prices and unemployment. The current study used monthly data from the period 1991:01–2010:12, making 238 observations of each variable for analysis and employed Toda Yamamoto causality test. The results of current study suggested the significant effect of oil prices on unemployment but found no significant association between real interest rate and unemployment, thus findings of current study are partially consistent with the efficiency wage model. Furthermore, results suggest that real oil prices cause significant changes in the real interest rate in Pakistan. It can be concluded from the results that oil prices can be used in long run to improve the forecasting of unemployment and real interest rate.

Anahtar Kelimeler: Oil prices, Interest rate, Unemployment, Efficiency Wage Model, Toda-Yamamoto

We investigate the effectiveness of Benford’s Law through a digital analysis of the off-balance sheet account disclosures made by Turkish Banks during the 1990-2010. We found that off-balance sheet account disclosures of the fiscal term 1999 doesn’t comply with Benford’s Law. Our finding is consistent with the Turkish Banks’ practices. We also provide evidence on “The Law of Anomalous Numbers”. Our results indicate a link between economic policy and deviation from frequencies of Benford’s Law.

Keywords:Benford’s Law, Digital analysis, Banking sector, Fraud investigation

This paper proposes a multi-regional growth model with endogenous human and physical capital in a perfectly competitive economy. Structurally it is an extension of the Uzawa-Lucas model to an interregional economy, even though this paper models behavior of households in an alternative way and introduce Arrow’s learning by doing and Zhang’s creative leisure (or learning through consuming) in modeling human capital accumulation. The small-open economy consists of multiple regions and each region has production, one education and one housing sector. The production side is the same as in the neoclassical growth theory. Households move freely among regions, making decisions on levels of choosing housing, education, good, consumption and saving. A region’s amenity which affects households’ decisions is endogenous, depending on the region’s output and population. The model describes a dynamic interdependence among wealth accumulation, human capital accumulation, time distribution (among leisure, work and education) and division of labor with endogenous wealth and income distribution among regions under perfect competition. This study also simulates the motion of the national economy and examines effects of changes in some parameters.

Keywords:Education, human and physical capital, multiple regions, amenity, agglomeration