Regional development, institutions and policies in Türkiye: Dynamic shift-share analysis (2004-2023)

Inequalities between regions tend to increase worldwide. In Türkiye, where inter-regional inequalities are quite high, regional inequalities and regional policies came to the fore along with the EU harmonization principles and the candidacy process, following the approval of EU candidacy in 1999. In the early 2000s, new regions were created in Türkiye in parallel with the EU regional classification, and Development Agencies (DAs) were established in these regions to accelerate regional development. In this research, the effects of the new regional development policies in Türkiye post-2000 and the DAs, which are the prominent actors of regional development, on the economic growth and competitive performances of the regions were examined. As the research method, regional policies after 2000 and regional economic growth performances in the 2004-2009 period and the 2013-2018 period, based on the year 2010 when DAs were established, were examined with dynamic shift-share analyses. In parallel with the changes in public administration, the period after 2018 was analyzed separately as the 2019-2023 period. According to the analysis results obtained, compared to the performance of the pre-2010 period, the regional competitiveness effect has increased in some middle-lowincome and low-income regions in the periods after the establishment of DAs, especially in sub-regions in the Southeastern Anatolia Region, where the Southeastern Anatolia Project is being implemented. On the other hand, negative regional competitiveness effects were observed in the economic growth performances of nine regions from different income groups after 2010. Additionally, a positive medium-low level correlation was determined between the financial support of DAs and the regional growth performances.