Borders of socio-economic development in Türkiye

Abstract

Turkish economy is characterized by a dual regional structure. Historically, western regions form the relatively more developed and rich geography of the country. In the meantime, landlocked eastern regions are realizing a period of marginalization pushing majority of these regions toward full isolation from rest of the country. Our knowledge on this dual pattern departs mostly from monetary indicators. In this study, I use the socio-economic development index (SDI) which is first constructed by the State Planning Organization (SPO). The main objective is to use spatial tools for the period of 1963-2017 and to explore the historical evolution of spatial externalities and heterogeneity. This aims to visualize the socio-economic borders of Turkish provinces. While our findings confirm the spatial inertia for the under-developed eastern regions, they also show rising spatial spillovers among the developed western geography. However, this positive impact is geographically bounded by the central part of the country.