Business and Economics Research Journal

321-335

Authors: Mehmet Fatih Ekinci, Hülya Saygılı

As energy dependency is one of the main drivers of rising global inflation, understanding the sectoral outlook for the effects of oil prices on inflation is crucial. This paper investigates oil price pass-through to consumer prices in Turkey utilizing a Phillips Curve estimation approach. Extending the results in the literature, we estimate Brent crude petroleum price pass-through coefficients for the 2-digit sectoral components of the consumer price index. Then, we compare the sector-level pass-through rates to the ones obtained from the headline and core inflation. We also apply a recursive estimation modeling to track pass-through behavior over time for each inflation series. The paper has several conclusions. First, the long-run oil price pass-through to headline inflation is around 7%. Second, pass-through to the core and sectoral inflation rates exhibit a significant amount of variation from headline inflation. Results with core inflation rates depend on whether energy prices are included or excluded from the consumer basket. Third, the sectoral pass-through rate depends on the weight of the energy-related items in that sector. Our findings suggest that the transport sector has the highest degree of pass-through. Fourth, the rate of pass-through to all prices increases following the hikes in inflation rates in September 2018 and October 2021.

369-387

Authors: Yasemin Karataş Elçiçek

This study aims to examine the existence of the month of the year effect, the day of the week effect, and seasonal anomalies in the return of gold futures contracts traded in the Borsa Istanbul Derivatives Market (BIST-VIOP) in the period of 02.09.2013 – 30.11.2022 through the Autoregressive Moving Average Models (ARMA)(2,2) and Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedastic (GARCH)(1,1) model. According to the results, positive returns were found on other days except Thursday from the model examining the relationship between the gold futures contract and the day of the week effect, positive returns were found in January and March from the model results examining the relationship between the gold futures contract and the month of the year effect, and positive as well as statistically significant returns were found in other seasons except for summer from the model examining the relationship between the gold futures contract and seasonal anomalies.

157-171

Authors: Joseph J. Henry, Peter Christensen, James C. Brau

Using inventory turnover to measure the efficiency of corporate inventory management, we perform econometric analyses to verify whether the inventory efficiency of a firm’s supply chain partners is a statistically significant driver of the firm’s own inventory efficiency. We test two mutually exclusive hypotheses. First, suppliers hold inventory on behalf of customers, effectively displacing inventory up the supply chain and resulting in a negative correlation between supplier and customer inventory turnover. Alternatively, inventory efficiency is integrated along the supply chain, resulting in a positive correlation between supplier and customer inventory turnover. Our bivariate and multivariate analyses of both firm- and industry-level data support the “integration” hypothesis of higher inventory efficiency along the supply chain. Our findings highlight the importance of expanding the research and practice of working capital management beyond the firm-level.

227-242

Authors: Sinan Çıkmak, Gökhan Kırbaç, Buşra Kesici

Drones, which are unmanned aerial vehicles, are used in various areas. Some important worldwide companies have been interested to integrate drone technology into their logistics applications. Although the use of drones promises various advantages such as reducing costs and improving responsiveness in the logistics sector, there are also various challenges to the adoption of this technology. Therefore, this study aims to identify and prioritize the challenges to drone technology adoption in the logistics sector. Initially, 34 challenges under seven major dimensions for the study were identified by a thorough literature review and consultation with selected experts. Then, the best-worst method (BWM) is applied to rank these major challenges and associated sub-criteria. The results show that “terrorist attacks”, “lack of legal regulations”, “difficulty of flight permit processes”, “flight area limitation due to restrictive visual line of sight (VLOS)”, and “personal data protection” are the top five challenges that confront the logistics sector for adopting drone technology. The findings of this research will provide important insights to practitioners and researchers interested in new technologies that can be applied in the logistics sector.

19-29

Authors: Gizem Vergili, Mehmet Sinan Celik

This study aims to determine the cointegration relationship between Dow Jones Sustainability Emerging Markets Index (DJSEMUP) and the VIX Fear Index with monthly series between February 2013 and March 2020. This study, which examines the cointegration relationship between sustainability and volatility index from the perspective of emerging markets, is novel. First, unit root tests are utilized to understand the stationarity of the series. The unit root test results show that the VIX Index and DJSEMUP Index are not stationary at the same level. To this end, the ARDL (Autoregressive Distributed Lag) bounds test, which allows to detection of stationarity relationships at different levels, is applied to examine the cointegration relationship. The results show that there is a long-term relationship between the DJSEMUP Index and the VIX Index with a negative coefficient. As a result, long-term investors of companies included in the DJSEMUP Index can be recommended to invest by considering the VIX Index.

109-121

Authors: Talha Bayir

This study was designed to determine clusters of brand followers on social media platforms and a cluster analysis was carried out to obtain information about the functional, social and communication benefits of social media platforms. The population of this research, which was carried out on social media users, consists of 414 people selected by convenience sampling method. The online survey method was used to collect the data. The research model variables were analyzed by two-step cluster analysis and K mean cluster analysis. Then, discriminant and chi-square analysis were performed. Findings indicate that Instagram users in the cluster 1 have the highest perception of benefit, YouTube users in the cluster 3 have a high perception of benefit, and Facebook and Twitter users in the cluster 2 have an average perception of benefit in terms of brand follow-up.

579-591

Authors: Zeynep Kantur, Gülserim Özcan

The most effective policy to prevent climate change is the decarbonization of the production process. Decarbonization, which should be planned and not delayed, will cause some assets to become idle or stranded, either entirely or partially. Therefore, the transition to a low-carbon economy results in sudden and unexpected fluctuations in asset prices. These shocks will affect the relevant sector and all production sectors with a domino effect and deteriorate financial stability. To the extent that these shocks are predictable, policymakers can prepare for the repercussions of green financial transformation. However, the tools needed to pre-measure them are new and dependent on many economic variables. Therefore, policymakers need a road map to act under this uncertainty. This paper theoretically provides insights into central banks’ role/engagement under climate change ambiguity. The paper shows that the less the central bank trusts its policy model, the higher the sensitivities of inflation, output-gap, and asset price-gap to climate-related shocks. Hence, an aggressive response of monetary policy is required in the face of uncertainty.

607-623

Authors: Deniz Ikizlerli

This study investigates the relationship between volume and volatility in the context of the Mixture of Distribution Hypothesis (MDH) and Sequential Information Arrival Hypothesis (SIAH) with respect to company size in Borsa Istanbul (BIST). Employing the generalized method of moments (GMM) method and granger causality tests, we find statistical evidence supporting the MDH for large-cap stocks, whereas we document no evidence of contemporaneous interaction between volume and volatility for mid-cap and small-cap stocks. This suggests that the dissemination of information in the stock market appears to be primarily through large firms. Our findings for large cap stocks have not changed across economic states. In terms of SIAH, for the stocks of companies of any size, we document uni-directional causality running from volatility to volume but not the other way around which is not consistent with the SIAH. However, we find supporting evidence of the SIAH for large cap stocks during the expansion periods.

687-705

Authors: Yesevi Alperen Yasa, Ruziye Cop

That Instagram is one of the most used social media platforms around the world which makes this application also one of the largest global markets in the world. People or businesses may easily set up a virtual store by employing the application Instagram. However, in order to achieve success in Instagram, it is necessary to gain the trust of consumers just like in e-commerce sites. The aim of this study is to determine factors forming the trust in Instagram stores and effect of the trust in Instagram stores on the purchase intention. Within this scope, 439 people were surveyed, which were selected by means of convenience sampling method, are Instagram users. Variance-based structural equation modeling was employed for analyses. In the conclusion of analyses carried out, it was detected that factors pertaining to the propensity to trust, customer endorsement, user likes and the number of followers, the perceived integrity, perceived benevolence, and perceived competence of an Instagram vendor have an effect on the trust of consumers in Instagram stores. Furthermore, it was concluded that the trust in Instagram stores had an effect on the purchase intention of users from Instagram stores.

367-383

Authors: Ahmet Emrah Tayyar

The mobility in foreign direct investment has increased with the liberalization of trade and globalization. Depending on this mobility, changes have occurred in the environmental quality of the countries according to the pollution level of the economic sectors. For this reason, the study’s main aim is to examine the energy sector in Turkey in terms of pollution haven and pollution halo hypotheses. In the study, the variables of total greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector (CO2 equivalent), urban population growth, and foreign direct investment inflows (%GDP) for the period 1990-2019 were used. The Johansen-Juselius (1990) test was used to determine the cointegration relationship between variables. The VECM (vector error correction model) and Toda-Yamamoto (1995) tests were used for causality analysis. According to the results of the analysis, there is a long-term relationship between the variables. In addition, it has been concluded that the pollution haven hypothesis is valid for the energy sector in Turkey in the long term. Therefore, the use of fossil energy resources by foreign direct investments in the energy sector should be deterred by various policies. As a result, administrative and financial regulations must be strong to ensure permanent environmental quality increases.

417-434

Authors: Hounaida Mersni, Gokberk Can

This paper investigates how moving forward in a life-cycle stage affects a company’s cash holdings. Additionally, this research examines how institutional ownership affects a company’s cash holdings. We further test whether this ownership moderates the relationship between cash holdings and life-cycle stages or not. The empirical analysis is based on a sample of 1,305 observations in an unbalanced panel data set from 227 Turkish non-financial companies between 2015 and 2020. According to our analysis, moving forward through life-cycle stages has an increasing effect on cash holdings, and increased institutional ownership positively affects cash-holding behavior. Our robustness test also showed that increased foreign ownership increases the cash holdings as the companies move forward in their life cycle stages. On the other hand, local institutional ownership decreases cash holdings behavior. This paper implies that companies reaching their decline stage will hold more cash. The investors of these companies may expect fewer investments, thus growth opportunities from these firms because instead of utilizing these funds, the management will prefer to keep these funds unused.

483-503

Authors: Mehak Rehman

This study aims to explore and examine the impact of various influencers on customers’ attitudes towards and intentions to shop at brick-and-mortar (B&M) stores. A quantitative survey approach was adopted to collect the data. Data were collected from 342 consumers using both an online and a face-to-face approach. The data were analysed using the structural equation modelling statistical technique. The findings suggest that customers’ perception of the quality of the products, social influence, enjoyment, atmosphere of B&M stores, and tangibility positively impact customers’ attitudes towards and intention to shop at B&M stores. This research contributes to the theory of consumption values, the theory of reasoned action, and the consumer behaviour literature. Based on the study findings, B&M stores are recommended to provide emotional values to customers by providing a friendly and pleasant atmosphere to their customers to enhance their intention to shop at B&M stores.