President Obama invested considerable political capital in Turkey in his first term, cultivating a close relationship with Prime Minister Erdogan and relying on Turkey as a key regional partner. He paid his first overseas visit to Turkey to show this commitment and new Turkish American Economic Partnership commission has formed. Turkey as the leading regional power in East Europe, Balkans, Central Asia and Middle East, has a thriving economy and stand strong during the Global recession that hit the US and Europe. Turkey successfully achieved strong growth rates and diversified its trade, investment portfolio. With the turmoil in Syria and the Arab awakening that topple down regional dictators, Turkey becomes even more vital for the regional stability and security and becomes a source of inspiration for the countries transforming. US is however lagging behind in unlocking this vast potential in the region where more than 80 percent of the international investments coming from the Europe. Turkish US trade as well is also one tenth of the EU trade with Turkey. In the midst of the EU-US trade negotiations, it is time for American businesses to flourish in Turkey and improve and enhance business and trade relations with Turkey.
Please Join our panel, for a discussion on Turkish Economy, Turkish American Economic Partnership and the Opportunities that Turkish market provides for American businesses.”
Program Details:
- Date: 24 April 2013
- 5:30 pm : Panel Discussion
- 7:00 pm : Reception (Hors d’oeuvres and refreshments served)
- Location : Alumni Lounge, Pyle Center
- Cost: There is no cost upon RSVP
About Speakers:
Hakan TAŞÇI is the Executive Director of TUSKON US, US Representative Office of the Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists of Turkey in Washington DC. TUSKON is the most widespread business NGO in Turkey with 192 business associations, 47.000 members, and 120 thousand companies. As the US Director, he designs and implements market access strategies for members, supports their strategic development in the US by facilitating b2b, b2g and non-profit engagement activities. He works as a government relations officer of the NGO in the US and organize outreach activities to policy makers, think tanks and NGO’s in Washington, DC. He worked as the chief coordinator of TUSKON for the IV. Least Developed Countries Conference where more than 4000 business people participated as part of the private sector track of the conference.
He speaks regularly on various TV channels like TRT, Bloomberg, STV, TGRT, VOA, TRT Turk, TRT Haber on Turkish and US economy matters. He writes weekly columns for Turkish daily Today’s Zaman. He has also published number of articles in international peer reviewed journals such as Applied Economics, International Journal of Finance and Economics, Physica A and Applied Economics Letters.
Before assuming this position, Mr. Taşçı taught Macroeconomics, Statistics, Business Economics, Principles of Economics courses at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Elon University for about four years. He also worked as a research assistant at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Bilkent University Economics Departments. His research focuses on Macroeconomics, Monetary Policy and International Business.
Mr. Taşçı is active in civil society organizations. He was the first elected Social Science Director of Turkish American Scientists and Scholars Association, TASSA. He organized regional workshops, served as the Organizing Committee member of the 2006, 2007 TASSA Annual Conference Programs which were held in Drexel and Yale Universities respectively. He formed a Policy Group at Bilkent University together with 50 bureaucrats and academics and led this Group for about two years.
Hakan TAŞÇI got B.S. in Mathematics and M.A. in Economics from Bilkent University and PhD at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is married with two sons. He speaks Turkish and English.
Abdullah Yavas holds the Robert E. Wangard Real Estate Chair and is the department chair of Real Estate and Urban Land Economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Wisconsin School of Business.
Previously, he was the Elliott Professor of Business Administration and the research director of the Institute for Real Estate Studies in the Smeal College of Business at Pennsylvania State University, where he received the Fred Brand Award for Outstanding Teaching, Smeal College’s highest undergraduate teaching award.
His research focuses on the economics of intermediation broadly defined with a special focus on real estate brokerage. His research interests include real estate brokerage, mortgage contracts, economics of information, and experimental economics. He also uses laboratory experiments to advance understanding of market players’ deviations from the predictions generated by rational models.
Yavas has authored or co-authored more than 50 articles in peer-reviewed journals on real estate, finance, and economics.
The results of his research have been cited in some of the nationally known publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Time, Money, BusinessWeek, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Boston Sunday Globe.
He has consulted for mortgage companies and real estate investment trusts.
Yavas is a world-renowned economist. In 2001, he made the World’s Top 500 Economists list, according to the number of articles published, prepared by Tom Coupé and sponsored by the European Economic Association.
He was ranked 6th on the list of Top 50 Authors for publications in Base Real Estate Journals between 1994-1998 by the Journal of Real Estate Literature. Yavas serves on the Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey.
He earned his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Iowa.