The economic value of military connections in Turkey

Gökçe Göktepe, Shanker Satyanath

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    Can financial connections to the military provide economic value in democratic environments? We address this question by studying whether firms in which the Turkish military had a controlling financial interest earned abnormally high stock returns on the Istanbul stock exchange. Our findings from event studies are that this is indeed the case. We infer that militaries can retain substantial power to influence economic policy from behind the scenes even after formally transferring it to democratically elected leaders. The paper contributes to the literature in public choice by demonstrating econometrically that the military can be a major rent seeking actor even in democratic environments.

    Original languageEnglish (US)
    Pages (from-to)531-552
    Number of pages22
    JournalPublic Choice
    Volume155
    Issue number3-4
    DOIs
    StatePublished - Jun 2013

    Keywords

    • Democracy
    • Democratic transitions
    • Political development
    • Political economy

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Sociology and Political Science
    • Economics and Econometrics

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'The economic value of military connections in Turkey'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this