Publications

Özlem Albayrak

• Working Paper No. 954 | April 2020

  Household Consumption, Household Indebtedness, and Inequality in Turkey

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  A Microeconometric Analysis

  This paper examines whether relative income and income inequality within reference groups affect household consumption. Using the explanations of consumption behavior based on Dusenberry’s relative income hypothesis, we test if household consumption levels in Turkey are affected by the household’s relative position and inequality in the reference group between 2005–12 by employing cross-sectional household-level data. We find that household consumption is negatively related to the relative income indicator after controlling for absolute income, and positively related to the income inequality of the reference group, as the literature suggests. The paper also shows that household indebtedness has a positive impact on household consumption when inequality in the reference group and the relative position of households are controlled for. We confirm that the results are not sensitive to chosen relative income indicators and income inequality.
   

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  Working Paper No. 954

  Associated Program:

  The Distribution of Income and Wealth

  Author(s):

  Özlem Albayrak

  Related Topic(s):

  Consumer spending Household debt Inequality Relative income hypothesis

  

• Working Paper No. 885 | February 2017

  Quality of Statistical Match of Household Budget Survey and SILC for Turkey

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  This paper presents the quality analysis of the statistical matching conducted for a research study on household consumption behavior, household indebtedness, and inequality for Turkey. The match has been done for four years (2005, 2008, 2009, and 2012) of Household Budget Surveys (HBS) and the Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC). The aim of the statistical matching is to transfer household expenditure data from the HBS to the SILC to create synthetic data sets that have information on household consumption expenditures as well as household income and indebtedness. We are following the methodology of constrained statistical matching, using estimated propensity scores developed in Kum and Masterson (2010) to produce the synthetic data sets that we need. The analysis shows that the match is of high quality.

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  Working Paper No. 885

  Associated Program:

  The Distribution of Income and Wealth

  Author(s):

  Özlem Albayrak Thomas Masterson

  Related Topic(s):

  Consumer economics Empirical analysis Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distribution Statistical matching Turkey