Contemporary Debates: Doç. Dr. Murat Koyuncu

Kadir Has Üniversitesi Ekonomi Bölümü’nün düzenlediği Contemporary Debates başlıklı serinin yeni konuğu, Doç. Dr. Murat Koyuncu (Boğaziçi Üniversitesi) olacak.

Dr. Koyuncu, 4 Ocak Perşembe saat 17:00’de B-201’de “From Elected to Appointed: The Economic Consequences of Local Authoritarian Takeovers”* başlıklı bir konuşma yapacak.

* Mustafa Kaba (Max Planck Institute) ve Serkant Adıgüzel (Sabancı Üniversitesi) ile ortak çalışma. 

Etkinlik İngilizcedir.

Özet: Replacement of locally elected officials with centrally appointed executives has been adopted as a political strategy in the recent global wave of democratic backsliding. This study reveals how such authoritarian takeovers of local jurisdictions adversely affect the rule of law and economic efficiency using the universe of state contracts in Turkey and a staggered Difference-in Differences (DiD) design. Notably, centrally appointed mayors use competitive auctions at a rate nearly half that of elected mayors. Instead, they favor extraordinary legal provisions that allow the use of noncompetitive procedures almost three times as often. This results in a 24% surge in contract prices and a 40% reduction in value for money, translating to a waste of 6% in overall procurement spending of affected municipalities. These findings are robust to various tests, including Regression Discontinuity (RD) estimation. Our exploration of underlying mechanisms points to diminished local accountability as a key driver, emphasizing the vital role of democracy for economic efficiency in the era of increasing autocratization.