Gökhan Özertan-Research
 

The research I conducted was focused on intellectual property rights, investment protection and efficient contract mechanism designs in agriculture and their impacts on biotechnology. My dissertation is based on a project funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Research Initiative Competitive Grants Program and carries the title “Intellectual Property Rights Protection of Biotechnology Innovations: Contracts, Terminator Genes and New Knowledge Creation.” This research is focused on identifying market mechanisms that can be used to replace sterility gene technology, evaluating effectiveness of alternative market mechanisms in intellectual property protection, empirically estimating costs, benefits and distributional consequences for market participants related with alternative market mechanisms and biotechnical solutions. USDA-Agricultural Resource Management Study dataset is used to obtain empirical results.  

 The fields I am interested in are:

    You can reach the papers below from my IDEAS webpage.

Intellectual Property Rights Protection

Based on a duopolistic set-up where firms produce software products with respective support packs, we analyze firms’ predetermined monitoring and their pricing decisions, as well as the impacts of these factors on welfare. Under presence of end-user piracy, users are classified as support-dependent and support-independent. First, a theoretical model is derived, but, due to its complexity, a numerical example is employed to derive the results. We observe that firms that are in competition face a menu of monitoring and pricing combinations. Our results indicate that (i) firms may use monitoring and pricing as strategic complements, rather than substitutes, (ii) profits are not necessarily an increasing function of both monitoring rates and prices, and welfare improvement from the lowest set of monitoring and pricing levels is possible, (iii) firms may prefer improvement in software rather than support packs, targeting especially the support-independent users.

Protection of intellectual property embedded in self-replicating biological innovations, such as genetically modified seed, presents two problems for the innovator: the need for copy protection of intellectual property and price competition between new seed and reproduced seed. We consider three regimes in two periods with asymmetric information: short-term contracts, biotechnological protection, and long-term contracts. We find that piracy imposes more intense competition for seed sales than does durability alone. Technology protection systems yield highest firm profit and long-term contracts outperform short-term contracts. Farmers prefer, in order, long-term, short-term, and biotechnical protection. Depending on monitoring cost, long-term contracts may be socially preferred to short-term contracts, with both preferred to biotechnical protection.

Agriculture and Environment in Turkey

In this study, irrigation-induced salinity is analysed through a dynamic model. In the model, all farmers in two neighboring Water User Associations (WUAs), which are managed independently, contribute to the accumulation of a common groundwater stock. However, by assumption, they are asymmetrically affected by the rising watertable due to the slope in the region. Since each farmer’s benefit function depends on not only his/her own irrigation practices, but also on the groundwater accumulation, there are strategic interactions among all farmers. We use differential games as the methodology and the open-loop Nash equilibrium as the solution concept. We analyse the model under four different scenarios. We show that even when each farmer moves in cooperation with other member farmers in his/her own WUA, socially optimal level of groundwater accumulation cannot be reached—the socially optimal level is reached when all farmers act cooperatively. Under these conditions, based on the level of groundwater accumulation, two different input taxes are offered to each type of farmer to induce them to take sustainable irrigation decisions.

This article addresses the dynamic impact of the 2005 H5N1 Avian Influenza outbreak on the Turkish poultry sector. Contemporary time-series analyses with historical decomposition graphs are used to address differences in monthly price adjustments between market levels along the Turkish poultry supply channel. The empirical results show that price adjustments are asymmetric with respect to both speed and magnitude along the marketing channel. Results also reveal a differential impact of the exogenous shock on producers and retailers. The findings have critical efficiency and equity implications for the supply-chain participants.

Yenilenebilir bir enerji kaynağı olarak biyokütleden elde edilen biyoyakıtların üretimine yönelik oluşturulacak politikalarda enerji, tarım, çevre ve kırsal kalkınma konuları birbirleriyle ilişkili durumdadır. Biyoyakıtlar hakkındaki literatür detaylı olarak ele alındıktan sonra, bu makalede biyoyakıtların Türkiye’deki etkileri değerlendirilmektedir. Yeni teknolojilerin Türkiye’de uygulamaya geçebilmesinde kamu sektörün küçük üreticilere ve özel sektöre vereceği destekler ve teşvikler önemli rol oynayacaktır. Enerji tarımına geçildiğinde ülkedeki kaynakların ve üretim sonrası gelirlerin nasıl paylaşılacağı önemli konulardır. Gıda güvenliği dikkat edilmesi gereken diğer bir hususken, tarım sektörünün korunması için regülasyona ihtiyaç duyulabilecektir. Türkiye’nin sürdürülebilir büyümede biyoyakıtlara yönelik karar alabilmesi için detaylı planlama yapması ve sonrasında enerji, tarım, çevre ve kırsal kalkınmaya yönelik dinamik ve entegre politikalar üretmesi gerekmektedir.

        The importance of biofuels for Turkey’s energy, agricultural, environmental and rural development policies.

While forming policies towards producing biofuels from biomass as a renewable energy source, energy, agricultural, environmental and rural development issues are interrelated. After discussing the literature on biofuels in detail, this paper aims at evaluating their impacts in Turkey. The support and subsidies provided to the private sector and farmers by the public sector will be crucial to implement the new technologies in Turkey. The allocation of resources and the distribution of income after production are other important matters related with energy farming. While food security is another important issue, regulation may be needed to protect the agricultural sector. To form policies towards biofuels, for sustainable growth, Turkey needs detailed planning and development of dynamic and integrated policies in energy, agriculture, environment and rural development.

The Atlantic bonito rush experienced in Turkey in the Fall of 2005 coincided with the avian influenza food scare that happened exactly at the same time-period in the country. This study examines the reactions of Turkish retail prices to those events. In this research, using time-series techniques, we investigate how the food scare and the excess fish caught jointly influence the retail prices for beef, chicken, and fish products in Turkey. Historical decomposition of beef, chicken, and fish price series explains the behavior of prices in a neighborhood of the two events. The results showed that both fish and chicken prices fell initially due to those conflicting events, but beef and fish prices increased as more of these products were substituted for chicken.

Using the case of the 2005-2006 Avian Influenza crisis also experienced in Turkey, we present its impacts on consumers’ concerns on the pandemic. Based on our cross-sectional dataset, derived from a household survey, results from our probit estimations imply that the negative impact of the pandemic on the poultry sector could have been alleviated by informing consumers about it. Frequent users, older consumers, and females are derived to be more concerned about the pandemic. Campaigns, especially through the efficient use of media channels, can target to minimize demand shocks and help poultry demand return to pre-outbreak levels. Using these results, policies can be designed to decrease the negative impacts of future food scares.

The Harran region, located in the South-eastern part of Turkey, is facing an increasing salinity problem due to excessive and inefficient irrigation practices. In this paper, we survey 619 cotton producers in the region and analyse their perceptions and practices towards soil salinity. The survey results indicate that formal education and training are the central factors that determine the farmers’ awareness of the relationship between excessive irrigation and salinity. The recognition of the negative externalities resulting from the unsustainable use of irrigation by neighbouring farms positively affects farmers’ willingness to participate in collective action to deal with the salinity problem. Yet, the current institutional setting in the Harran region discourages collective action and farmer initiatives. Policymakers need to support the empowerment of the local farmers through better and locally-relevant education and training and provide adequate incentives for farmers to adopt more sustainable practices and technologies.

Cotton farming in Turkey faces economic, environmental and socioeconomic challenges. Organic cotton has been a successful response that greatly benefited low-input farmers, but worldwide it is becoming a mature niche market with limited growth potential. Since no genetically modified (GM) varieties have been approved so far in Turkey, we want to find out how the potential adoption of GM cotton by input-intensive producers could contribute to economic, social and environmental improvements. When experiences with GM cotton in other countries are applied to the Turkish context, GM cotton is likely to encounter the highest adoption rates in regions that already face significant pest infestation rates. It may eventually improve the economic and environmental situation in these regions and in the rapidly expanding and increasingly input-intensive cotton growing area of Southeastern Anatolia. To ensure its long-term sustainability Turkey needs to pass an enforceable biosafety law and invest in homegrown agricultural biotechnology research.

Micro and Small Enterprises

This study analyzes the impacts of selected factors on growth of micro and small enterprises (MSEs) in Turkey. Using a unique national field survey data on urban MSEs with 1-49 persons engaged, we first present the determinants of MSE growth for the period between the start-up of enterprises and the year 2000. Then, we evaluate the impact of the financial crisis experienced in Turkey in 2001 on the MSEs. Detrimental effects of the crisis on MSEs are clearly detected in our estimations. Some of the factors contributing to the growth of MSEs lose their influence almost immediately during the crisis; indeed, the impact of some factors is reversed. Overall results reveal that there is much scope for designing supportive policies for MSEs which can assist them to withstand the negative impacts of future crises, especially in emerging economies.

This study examines the performance of enterprises of different size that operate in different subsectors of the manufacturing sector during one of the major financial crises experienced in Turkey in 2001. Results of our analysis show that the impact of the financial crisis in 2001 was quite heterogeneous by size categories and subsectors. Enterprise responses to the crisis demonstrate wide variation. The year following the crisis a recovery was observed for the larger enterprises whereas the performance of most of the small enterprises continued to deteriorate. The results of this study indicate that policy interventions addressing enterprises during a crisis should consider their diversity.

Tax System in Turkey

This article makes use of two different data sets on Turkey to explore the relationship between the tax structure and issues such as democratic representation, citizenship rights, and poverty and social exclusion. The first of these data sets is the extensive Household Consumption Survey (2003) by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TURKSTAT). This extensive survey data allows a very comprehensive quantitative analysis of the tax burden on the consumption baskets of households in different income groups, as well as in different regions of Turkey. The second data set incorporates qualitative data on Turkish citizens’ views and attitudes towards different aspects of the Turkish tax system—such as its fairness (justice), transparency, and efficiency in generating funds for public activities—obtained through focus group meetings and in-depth interviews conducted with citizen groups and various stakeholders in cities in different regions in Turkey. The quantitative findings presented in the study clearly
reveal that, if anything, taxes are expected to exacerbate the problem of inequality and poverty in Turkey. Heavily relying on regressive consumption taxes results in the poor paying a disproportionate amount of their income as indirect taxes, more so for those in Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia where poverty is more extreme. On the other hand, the qualitative part reveals that ordinary citizens find the current tax system highly unfair and feel that they receive very little in terms of public services in return for the taxes they pay. In spite of the merits attributed in theory to taxation as a means to provide services and thereby legitimize the state, the payment of taxes is met with considerable reluctance. Most of this reluctance is attributable to factors such as the citizens’ inability to pay, and a lack of clarity with respect to the obligations and reasons for paying. It also emerges that the unwillingness to pay is a protest against the degradation of public services and the perceptions of unfairness, corruption, and other administrative failings.