Ekonomi politikası belirsizliğinin kurumsal yatırım kararlarına etkisi: Türkiye örneği

The aim of this Ph.D. thesis is to investigate the impact of uncertainty on the corporate investment decisions of the BIST (Borsa İstanbul) - listed manufacturing firms. We used the economic policy uncertainty (EPU) as a proxy for uncertainty. To examine the impact of EPU on investment decisions, first, following the method of Baker et al. (2015), we developed a monthly news-based EPU index for Turkey over the period from February, 2000 to December, 2018. We used the digital archives of five leading Turkish newspapers to obtain data. The results show that the Turkish EPU index is affected by both domestic and foreign events. It rises mainly with elections and national political uncertainties. Second, we measured the impact of EPU on the corporate investment decisions of the publicly traded manufacturing firms. The sample consists of the quarterly financial statements of 107 BIST-listed manufacturing firms. The data period is from 2005 Q1 to 2018 Q4. We used balanced panel data analysis and estimated the regression equation parameters with fixed effects model. The results change with respect to time period. In the short-term, we observed that the impact of EPU on corporate investment decisions is insignificant. In the medium-term, as in line with the predictions of the real options theory, EPU has a negative and significant effect on the investment decisions of the BIST - listed manufacturing firms. The results also show that there is a time gap between decision to invest and realization of corporate investments. This finding is in line with the irreversibility assumption of real options theory and forward-looking feature of investments. When firms meet with a positive common shock in the investment environment, they tend to delay their investments or disinvest. Moreover, the results show that in the long-term, the effect of EPU on corporate investment decisions is positive.