34. International Public Finance Conference
Economic Regulation as a Requirement for Economic Efficiency: the Assessment of Turkey
Ali Fuat UruşMacroeconomic priorities of today’s states are efficiency in resource allocation, economic stability and development. For these purposes, the state assumes the role of regulator. By means of economic regulation arising from the need for economic efficiency, the state prevents the monopolization and market inefficiency by creating the legal framework of competition in order to ensure and preserve the free competition in the markets. It also assures the continuity of competition in the market economy by using control,audit and sanction mechanisms. The purpose of this study is to put forth the conceptual dimensions of economic regulation and its application in Turkey as a general outline within the framework of economic efficiency. For this aim, a literature review and some evaluations were made. Considering the economic regulation practices in Turkey, it was found to have shortcomings on issues such as in-market competition, pricing and costs at the point of ensuring the economic efficiency and competitiveness in the market. It is important to design a system to achieve public benefit through relevant regulation institutions in the markets such as finance, capital, banking, energy, telecommunication and transport which are key in the national economy. For this purpose, the limit of the duties and responsibilities undertaken by regulation institutions in order to correct the disruptions of the market and to establish the competition should be clarified by the laws and rules. Furthermore, the existing regulation, and especially economic regulation practices in Turkey -taking into consideration the results of similar practices in other countries- should be revised in the context of “globalization, privatization and competition” phenomenons then, according to this point of view reasonable regulatory policies should be identified and implemented by sectoral base.