Uluslararası Bankacılık ve Finans Anabilim Dalı

Effect of wage payment days on USD/TL foreign exchange rate in Turkey

This paper examines and analyzes changes (increase, decrease otherwise) in US Dollar against Turkish Lira foreign exchange rate returns in some calendar days such as wage payment days in Turkish free foreign exchange market around turn of the month, beginning of the month, before holidays and mid-day of the month between years January 2003 and December 2018. It is an empirically proven fact by related literature that changes in foreign exchange rates steer foreign exchange deposits, overnight interest rates and outlook of Turkish economy. Dollarization in the Turkish economy directly affects the inflation expectations, thus causes a re-adjustment period for overall expectations on macroeconomic level. This paper focuses on the effect of wage payment days on dollarization behavior.