COMPULSORY COURSES

İKT 105 - Introduction to Economics  (3 - 0) 3

Introduction to microeconomic analysis and its fundamental concepts: consumer choice, supply and demand, elasticity, production and cost analysis. Market structures: Perfect competition, monopoly, monopolistic competition and oligopoly. Macroeconomic analysis and its fundamental concepts: national income accounting, growth, business cycles, unemployment, inflation, aggregate demand and aggregate supply. The multiplier model. Fiscal policy and the financial sector. Demand for money and the monetary policy. International trade and finance.

İKT 110* - Economic Analysis and Applications  (3 - 0) 3
Introduction to R programming. Vector, matrix definitions and R programming software. Control structures, For and While loop in R softwares, Data structures, Graphics and their interpretations. Input-output analysis. Microeconomic applications.

İKT 213* - Microeconomic Theory I  (3 - 0) 3
Introduction to consumer theory. Budget constraint. Utility concept and utility maximization problem. Intertemporal budget constraint and choice, present value, interest rate and inflation. Exchange, general equilibrium and efficiency, Pareto efficiency, Edgeworth box problems. Uncertainty, expected value and expected utility, risk aversion. Introduction to producer theory, cost curves, profit maximization and cost minimization. Perfect competition and monopoly.

İKT 214* - Microeconomic Theory II  (3 - 0) 3
Non-cooperative games (extensive and normal form games) and solution concepts (dominance, minimax method, pure and mixed strategy Nash equilibria, rationalizability). Repeated games. Non-cooperative bargaining. Cooperative bargaining. Cooperative games, applications (oligopoly, information economics, auction theory).

İKT 233* - Macroeconomic Theory I  (3 - 0) 3
Closed-economy Macro. Macroeconomic data. Money and Inflation. Unemployment. Economic Growth. Economic fluctuations and crisis. Aggregate demand. Aggregate Supply. Macroeconomic Policy: Monetary, fiscal. Money demand and supply. Micro-based macroeconomics: consumption, investment.

İKT 234* - Macroeconomic Theory II  (3 - 0) 3
Open-economy Macro. Aggregate demand in open-economy. Foreign exchange market and determination of exchange rate. Exchange rate regimes and determination of optimal exchange rate. Current account and balance of payments. Monetary and fiscal policy in open-economy. Transfers and economic growth. Foreign exchange crisis.

İKT 253* - Statistics  (3 - 0) 3
Descriptive statistics and data summarization. Graphical analysis of data. Probability theory. Random variables. Discrete probability distributions, continuous probability distributions, normal distribution, sampling distributions. Point estimation and interval estimation. Hypothesis testing: confidence interval approach, test of significance. Applications regarding real life problems with the help of statistical software.

İKT 261* - Mathematics for Economics and Business I  (3 - 0) 3
Set theory and introduction to logic. Closed functions. Introduction to optimization, Weierstrass theorem, implicit function theorem, unconstrained and constrained static optimization and economic applications. Homothetic and homogeneous functions. Integrals and applications from economics.

İKT 311* - International Economics I  (3 - 0) 3
Basic international trade theories. Comparative advantage and costs. Relative prices, factor ratios and comparative advantage. The welfare and income distribution effects of trade. Economic growth and international trade. Protectionism and international trade policies. Economic integration theories. Intra-industry trade.

İKT 313* - Public Economics  (3 - 0) 3
Efficiency. Welfare theorems. Efficiency and equity. Market failures. Public goods: efficient provision of public goods, models of the optimal provision of public goods. Externalities. Social choice: public mechanism for allocating resources, the problem of transition from individual preferences to common preferences, Lindahl equilibrium, various voting methods and their problems, Arrow's impossibility theorem, the median voter, vote trading, politics and economics. Taxation. Taxation and income distribution: efficiency, equity and taxation, personal taxation and behavior, corporate taxation and behavior and economic decisions.

İKT 335 - Money and Monetary Policy  (3 - 0) 3
Functions of Money. The evolution of payments systems. Money supply. Money demand. Monetary transmission mechanism. Inflation. Determination of interest rates. Determination of exchange rates. Currency substitution and dollarization. The goals and instruments of monetary policy. Political business cycles and central bank independence. Interaction of fiscal and monetary policies. Monetary policy regimes. Vulnerability dominance. Financial crises.

İKT 338 - Financial Markets  (3 - 0) 3
Basic finance concepts, financial market structures and functions, financial intermediation and regulation. Interest Rates: risk and maturity, yield curves. Asset demand; supply, demand and interest rates in the bond market. Asset pricing models, application of asset market approach to commodities markets (gold).  Efficient market hypothesis. Behavioral finance. Central Bank operations, market liquidity. Markets: money, bonds, stocks, mortgage, foreign exchange.

İKT 351* - Econometrics I  (2 - 2) 3
Ordinary least squares method and its basic assumptions and desired properties. Bivariate and multivariate regression models and various related estimation and inference topics. The maximum likelihood estimation. Dummy variable regression. Matrix approach to classical linear regression model.

İKT 472 - History of Economic Thought  (3 - 0) 3
An overview of the main schools of economic thought, classical economic analysis, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, Marxian analysis, neoclassical economic analysis, Keynesian and post-Keynesian economic analysis.

 

ELECTIVE COURSES

İKT 315 - Labor Economics  (3 - 0) 3
Factors that affect labor supply and demand. Perfect and imperfect competition in the labor market. Reasons for wage differentials, compensating wage differentials, human capital model, factors behind the increase in wage inequality. The definition and types of unemployment, job search model, efficiency wages, Phillips curve. The main characteristics of the Turkish labor market and the unemployment problem.

İKT 316* - Social Security and Labor Markets  (3 - 0) 3
Main concepts and principles of the social security market and the labor market. The interactions between social security and macro economic variables such as income distribution, employment, public sector borrowing requirement, interest rate, savings and investment. Evaluation of the social security reform initiatives in Turkey.

İKT 332 - International Economics II  (3 - 0) 3
Basic open-economy macroeconomic models. Balance of payments, current account, capital account, saving-investment balance in open economy.  Exchange rate market, exchange rate regimes, the determination of exchange rate. Expectations, exchange rate-interest rate relationship and uncovered interest rate parity. International monetary system, monetary union and the European monetary system. Capital flows and crises.

İKT 336 - Financial Markets and Institutions  (3 - 0) 3
Basic finance concepts, financial market structures and functions. Interest Rates: risk and maturity, yield curves. Asset demand; supply, demand and interest rates in the bond market. Efficient market hypothesis. Central Bank operations, market liquidity. Markets: money, bonds, stocks, mortgage, foreign exchange. Economic applications with emphasis on Turkish financial markets and the global crisis.

İKT 395 - Industrial Organization  (3 - 0) 3
Market structure and organization, perfect competition, monopoly, homogenous products and services markets,  differentiated products and services markets, market concentration, entry-exit and mergers. Technology and market structure, research and development, compliance and standards. Marketing, advertisement, quality, pricing and marketing strategies. The role of knowledge, management, compensation mechanisms, regulations, price discrimination and search theory. Industrial sector based analysis.

İKT 396 - Topics in Public Economics  (3 - 0) 3
Individuals and the government, fiscal functions, fiscal policy and its tools, fiscal policy and its effects on the economy. Public goods and characteristics of public goods, government expenditures, government expenditures and economic growth, government debt and its theories, stabilization policies and rules, government finance, taxation and tax system, taxation and income distribution, budget theory, the Turkish fiscal policy and system.

İKT 400 - Economics Seminar  (3 - 0) 3
Various topics regarding the Turkish and world economy: the effects of crises, inflation, unemployment, production, regulatory reform and economic policies. Discussion of reasons for economic problems and evaluation of the proposed solutions with participation and guidance by subject experts.

İKT 401 – Topics in Advanced Microeconomic Theory (3 - 0) 3
Selected topics from Microeconomic Theory will be covered.

İKT 411 - Principles of Economic Development  (3 - 0) 3
The concept of development, indicators of development. Theories of growth; the neoclassical growth model, human capital and growth, technological progress and growth. Expectations and economic development. Inequality, the link between growth and inequality. Poverty and undernutrition. Population growth. Finance and development. Institutional quality.

İKT 415 - Game Theory  (3 - 0) 3
Normal-form and extensive-form noncooperative games under perfect information: Pure-strategy Nash equilibrium, mixed-strategy Nash equilibrium, dominant-strategy equilibrium, rationalizability, subgame-perfect equilibrium. Bayesian noncooperative games and extensive-form noncooperative games under imperfect information. Repeated noncooperative games. Noncooperative bargaining. Cooperative games. Cooperative bargaining.

İKT 416 - Experimental Economics  (3 - 0) 3
Historical origins of experimental perspective in economics. Setting and testing hypothesis. Theoretical and experimental analysis of individual’s decisions. Comparison of theoretical and experimental results in game theory. Experimental analysis of social manners, division, equity and reciprocity. Experimental results about public goods and coordination failures. Computer programming of experiments and laboratory applications.

İKT 417 - Welfare Economics  (3 - 0) 3
Fundamentals of welfare economics. Welfare theorems. Compensation principle and social welfare function: measurability and comparability, optimal distribution of welfare and income. Measuring welfare changes. Market failures. Social choice. Property rights and mechanisms, Coase's theorem, intergenerational equity. Preference revelation problem and empirical methods for its analysis: survey data, the Clark-Gloves mechanism, the travel cost method, hedonic prices. Cost-benefit analysis. Risk: attitudes toward risk, welfare analysis of risky projects, the value of information and irreversible consequences.

İKT 418 - Environmental Economics  (3 - 0) 3
Conventional and economic solutions to environmental problems, taxation, subsidies, emission trading. Planning: environmental risk analysis, benefit-cost analysis. Air: air quality, mobile and stationary sources, global air quality, policies for ozone depletion and global warming, protection of the drinking water. Water: Water quality, point and nonpoint sources, pollution control and management. Waste and toxic substances: managing municipal solid waste, controlling pesticides and toxic chemicals. Global environmental management: sustainable development, international trade and agreements, industrial ecology. The environment and development. Environmental problems and policies in Turkey.

İKT 421 - Natural Resource Economics  (3 - 0) 3
Natural resources and society.  Economic analysis of natural resources. Optimal management of renewable and nonrenewable resources. Optimal depletion of nonrenewable resources. Optimal use of renewable resources. Resource damage assessments.  Issues in resource use and allocation, the role of markets and institutions, economic policies.  Natural resources and sustainable development.

İKT 422 - Energy Economics  (3 - 0) 3
Fundamentals of energy, its resources, production, and price dynamics. Energy demand and supply. International energy markets: oil market and OPEC, natural gas market, LNG monopsony, coal market. Nuclear energy. Energy derivatives for managing risk: futures, options and swaps. Energy policies and regulations: electricity generation, transmission and distribution. Energy, environment and sustainable development. Global warming. Renewable energy resources. Managing the multicultural world of energy. The energy market and policies in Turkey.

İKT 424 - Economics of Regulation and Antitrust  (3 - 0) 3
The theory of government regulations and antitrust policies. Mergers and acquisitions, contractual arrangements, monopoly and oligopoly, price discrimination, optimal pricing, natural monopoly, rate of return regulation. Property rights and efficiency. Market failures, externalities and their implications on competitiveness. Analysis of public utilities: telecommunication, electricity and natural gas. Analysis of financial market regulations.

İKT 425 - Auctions: Theory and Applications  (3 - 0) 3

Fundamental Auction Methods: Open and closed auctions, private value auctions, revenue equivalence theorem, risk averse bidders, budget constraints, reservation price, resale auctions, dependent value auctions, Winner’s curse, collusion in auctions, multiple-object auctions, auction design in practice, spectrum auctions, ınternet auctions, search engine advertising auctions.

İKT 426 - Economics of Information and Mechanism Design  (3 - 0) 3

This course covers some selected topics in economics of information, mechanism and contract design. After establishing the basic problems associated with the informational asymmetries among the agents participating in a strategic interaction, we ask whether optimal design of contracts, institutions and social choice rules could overcome some of these problems. Applications: optimal contracts in insurance and labor markets, optimal tax design, voting rules etc.

İKT 427 - Social and Economic Networks  (3 – 0) 3
The aim of this course is to introduce network models and network identification and evaluation analyzes for economic networks and to implement them with R and Gephi programs. The concept and methods of social network analysis will be covered in theory and practice for the examination of economic networks. First, theoretical aspects are reviewed; second, attributes of the network structures are studied: diameters, small world, clustering, degree, random network, assortativity, social capital, and diffusion; Finally, R and Gephi applications are performed to analyze and visualize economic networks.

İKT 431 - Public Finance  (3 - 0) 3
Analysis of government expenditures and public revenues, the income redistribution role of the government, the principles and techniques of taxation, government debts, the political decision making mechanism and the rationalization of the budgetary process, debt management, public finance of  municipal governments.

İKT 432 - Analytical Political Economy  (3 - 0) 3
Analysis of voter choices, Arrow’s impossibility theorem, Game theory based voter behavior and political competition models, Applications of these models to various problems. Examples: The effects of different methods on voter welfare in the finance of election campaigns; lack of voter support in welfare-enhancing policies and redistribution of income; policies against tax evasion; and the factors that determine voter support on public service policies.

İKT 434* - Turkish Economy  (3 - 0) 3
Analysis of the Turkish economy from a periodical point of view. Sectoral developments, development plans, crises and the stabilization measures, incentives, privatization, the transformation of the Turkish economy after 1980, the EU customs union process.

İKT 435* - Contemporary Issues in Turkish Economy  (3 - 0) 3
Overview of the Turkish economy from a macroeconomic and microeconomic perspective. The economic transformation in the process of financial liberalization and globalization. Macro and micro based policy analysis. Governance.

İKT 436 - Tourism Economy  (3 - 0) 3
The fundamental concepts of tourism economics, historical development of world tourism and the current tendencies, the economic effects of tourism. The organizational and sectoral structure in Turkey, policy implementations, objectives and realizations, assessments for future directions.

İKT 437* - Financial Institutions  (3 - 0) 3
Fundamentals of financial institutions, transaction costs, asymmetric information problem, financial development and growth, financial crises. Banks and financial institutions management, bank balance sheet and performance, banking regulations, banking crises. Mutual funds, hedge funds, insurance companies and pension funds, investment banks, brokers and dealers, venture capital firms, other finance companies. Risk management in financial institutions, hedging with financial derivatives. Special emphasis on financial institutions and the crisis experience in Turkey.

İKT 438 - Economic and Social Transformation of Turkey  (3 - 0) 3
The fundamental problems of the Turkish economy and the various approaches to these problems. Other country experiences. Maintaining the status-quo and reform alternatives. Economic and political feasibility and sustainability of reform. The impact of international relations and social development on the reform process.

İKT 441 - Applied Macroeconomics  (3-0) 3
Study of selected topics from macroeconomics using basic econometric tools, and with special emphasis and applications on Turkey and the global financial architecture: business cycles, money and inflation, employment and unemployment, consumption and investment, exchange rate regimes, economic crises, asset markets.

İKT 442* - Interpreting Macroeconomic Indicators  (3 - 0) 3 
Concepts related to production, employment, and growth; internal and external balance; monetary policy; fiscal policy; examination of a set of concepts related to structural reforms. Basic flow-stock relations.  The interpretation of real and financial indicators and balance sheets related to these indicators.  

İKT 451 - Applied Econometrics (Time Series Analysis)  (3 - 0) 3
Time series analysis are statistical methods used to analyze the course of observed variables over time such as GNP, inflation, exchange rate and stock prices and to develop estimates related to them. These methods, which are also used by central banks and financial market actors, are used to understand the causal relationships between variables and to determine macroeconomic policies. The main purpose of this course is to present the necessary techniques used for time series analysis by supporting them with applications and the main topics are: Introduction to time series analysis, basic time series models, stationary and non-stationary processes, structural break tests, seasonality, estimation and forecasting, state-space models and data filtering methods, analysis of financial time series, conditional heteroscedasticity models.

İKT 452 - Applied Econometrics (Microeconometrics)  (3 - 0) 3
Microeconometrics deals with model-based analysis of individual-level or grouped data on the economic behavior of individuals, households or firms. The outputs of microeconometric analysis are used to shape public policy issues, and are extensively applied to political science, psychology, education, and sociology subjects using statistical modeling. The main objective of this course is to present the necessary techniques used for applied microeconometric analysis and the main topics are: Panel data analysis: the linear unobserved effects model. Nonlinear estimation techniques: the maximum likelihood method and the generalized method of moments. Some nonlinear econometric models: probit and logit models, the Tobit model, sample selection and attrition problem, estimating average treatment effects, count data and related models, duration analysis.

İKT 457 - Artificial Intelligence for Economics and Finance I  (3-0) 3
This course aims to introduce artificial intelligence and machine learning methods and applications that are widely used in economics and finance. The course covers major supervised learning techniques of modern statistical learning. Inferential modeling will be examined with the emphasis on regression and classification methods. The course examines unsupervised learning, approaches such as basic component analysis and clustering (hierarchical, k-mean). Logistic regression, linear discriminant analysis, re-prefix (bootstrap, cross validation), model selection, tree-based methods and support vector machines are among the other topics to be discussed. All topics will be covered on applied examples using computer programming languages and a large number of economic and financial data sets.

İKT 458 - Artificial Intelligence for Economics and Finance II  (3-0) 3
This course builds on the topics covered in İKT457. The course covers artificial intelligence methods widely used in economics and finance like machine learning methods for large data sets, visualization, and applications will be examined. Nonlinear discriminant analysis, Bayesian artificial neural networks, deep learning, advanced tree-based methods are among the main topics to be covered. All topics will be covered using computer programming languages using a large number of economic and financial data sets and practical examples. Within the framework of the course, students are expected to develop a term project on economics / finance on computer environment.

İKT 462 - Mathematics for Economics II  (3 - 0) 3
Systems of linear equations. Matrix algebra and applications from economics. Linear inequalities, determinants, eigenvalues and eigenvectors, characteristic equations of matrices. First and second degree differential equations and difference equations. Dynamic optimization and economic applications. 

İKT 471 - Economic History  (3 - 0) 3
Economic development in ancient times and the agricultural revolution, economic structure in Greek and Roman periods, feudalism and economy, economic development in Medieval Europe, economic order in the world of Islam, geographic discoveries and their impact, price revolution, mercantilism, the emergence of the modern industry, industrial revolution and its social outcomes, banking and finance, economic developments in the American continent and the Far East, economic crisis and the twentieth century world economy, economic consequences of World War I and World War II.

İKT 473 - Ottoman Economic History  (3 - 0) 3
Sources of Ottoman economic history, pre-Ottoman economic structure, the Ottoman economic view of the world, the state structure, income sources and management, taxation, the feoff system, land ownership, peasant-state relations, transportation structure and trade, guilds, the Ottoman monetary and financial system, price revolution and its effects on the imperial economy, Ottoman industry during the Tanzimat period, economic and social transformation in the final periods of the Empire.

İKT 481 - Analytical Writing for Economists  (3 - 0) 3
Study of selected texts and cases toward developing the skills for analytical thinking, self-expression, and employing the tools of economics for analyzing economic and social cases. Preparation of documents in the form of memos and briefs addressing hypothetical senior executives. Examination of good writing examples and different writing formats.

İKT 495 - Advanced Microeconomic Theory  (3 - 0) 3
Welfare: fair division, cardinal and ordinal welfarism. Social choice and voting, cooperative bargaining, introduction to cooperative games and the core concept, mechanism design, auctions theory, matching theory. Introduction to behavioral and experimental (and neuro) economics.

İKT 496 - Advanced Macroeconomic Theory  (3 - 0) 3
Theoretical and empirical analysis of business cycles. International business cycles. Determinants of global crises. Optimal monetary policy, monetary models, Taylor rule. Inflation targeting, macroeconomic effects of inflation targeting. Monetary policy and fiscal policy interaction, theoretical analysis of optimal fiscal policy.

İKT 499 - Independent Research  (3 - 0) 3

The rules of this course are as follows:

1) This course can be taken from full-time instructors of the Department of Economics. 

2) The student is required to make contact with the instructor and agree on a specific research topic and content. The registration of the student to the course will be made by head of department upon the request of the related instructor before the add-drop period ends. 

3) Within the scope of this course, an instructor can work with at most one student in a semester.

4) The student must have the status of 3rd grade or (preferably) 4th grade and have a GPA of at least 3.00. Students who do not meet the GPA requirement but are willing to take this course will be considered by the department. (These students may be asked to, for example, have a certain background in a subject and to have a preliminary study on that subject.) 

5) There will be no make-up or MES right for this course. A student who does not get a passing grade or wants to increase his/her grade will have to repeat the course next semester. 

6) Students who show the best performance in this course within one academic year will be invited to make a presentation in the department at the end of the year.

Based on the success of the presentation and the evaluation of the instructor, one or more of these students will be awarded the "Best Research at the Undergraduate Level".

 

COURSES OFFERED TO THE OTHER DEPARTMENTS

İKT 103-İ Introduction to Economics  (4 - 0) 4

Conventional international trade theory: basic foreign trade model, absolute advantage and comparative advantage, the specific factor model. Foreign trade policy and gains from trade.

İKT 106 International Economics  (3-0) 3

Introduction of basic economic schools of thought; basic institutions and concepts in international economics: comparative advantage; gains from foreign trade; economic growth and international trade; causes and effects of protectionism; foreign exchange market; exchange rate determination; exchange rate systems; balance of external payments; international monetary system; international trade and finance organizations; monetary union and the European monetary system.