EconNews Roundup

Your friendly neighborhood economist reporting from the Starbucks in Istanbul Ataturk Airport International Arrivals, at the risk of being diseased by Mr. Swine Flu sitting across me (see the great dangers I encounter to bring you this blog):

The number of high net worth individuals has increased 6.4% in 2009, according to ML. As in the Great Gatsby, the rich get richer, and the poor...

I knew the notorious all-inclusive system was endangering Turkey's tourism prospects, at least in terms of value added, but I was surprised to see the Cappodocians blame all-inclusive tourism of the Turkish South for their woes as well.

And while the Turks are vying for European tourists, Europeans want more Turkish tourists.

It is as if the opposition CHP's top brass has heard my recent complaints that no one knows what the party's economic agenda is. I was planning to do a post on my take on Kilicdaroglu's comments on CHP's economic policy, but to get start, you can read the news piece, translated from Daily News' sister (or rather big brother) Referans.

TUSIAD head says that more intellectual property rights is needed for foreign investments. Definitely, but given previous work on Turkey's binding constraints to investment, which I have referred to numerous times, as well as my impressions from managers, I doubt IPR should be the first priority. And by the way, anyone who has seen some decent econometrics would be very skeptical of cross-section-reeking remarks such as "a one point rise in the annual International Property Rights Index [IPRI] score predicts a 27 percent increase in foreign direct investment and a 57 percent increase in the re-investment of a previously implemented project"...

Turkey's oil and gas exploration bill.

Last but not the least, my neighbor (in the Daily News time-space) Erdogan Alkin, who, among his many attributes, has brought up the great Turkish economists the Alkin Brothers, argues that being a world leader is not easy.