An assessment of the technology level and knowledge intensity of regions in Turkey

ABSTRACT

The paper investigates the patterns of technology and knowledge of the regions. The first aim of the paper is to determine cluster templates at the national level. The second aim of the paper is to investigate the technology and knowledge composition of the regional highpoint clusters. The paper identifies patterns of industrial linkages to define cluster templates and regional highpoints. The second part uncovers regional distributions of technology and knowledge. The data comes from Turkey’s 2012 input–output table. The location quotients use industrial employment statistics from the Turkish Statistical Institute. The technological and knowledge intensity classification follows Eurostat. The findings reveal 10 cluster templates in Turkey. Spatial distribution of the highpoint clusters reveals that most regions contain highpoint clusters with low technology and low knowledge-intensive sectors. The results reveal that highpoint clusters in Turkey’s regions contain industries whose technologies do not demand high skills, knowledge and sophistication. Limited existence of high-tech industries and low knowledge intensity in Turkey’s industry composition is a limiting factor for transition to high value-added manufacturing. Special emphasis should be directed towards constructing regional advantage, given the current levels of technology and knowledge intensity.

KEYWORDS:

• Industry clusters
• input-output analysis
• principal components analysis
• regional specialization
• technology and knowledge Intensive

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 As explained above, the I-O table is at the national level. In exploring the agglomerations of the cluster templates at the regional level, we use regional employment data of the sectors in the cluster templates. The employment data at the regional level uses the NACE Rev.2 classification. The classification that is used in I–O table is CPA 2008. The authors use Eurostat correspondence tables (http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/ramon/index.cfm?TargetUrl=DSP_PUB_WELC) (Access Date 05.11.2018) in order to convert CPA2008 to an NACE Rev.2 classification. The NACE matchings of the sectors from the I–O table are presented in Table 2. Regional employment data is for 2009–2015 (Table 3)

2 http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/metadata/FR/htec_esms.htm, Access Date: 09.07.2018.

3 http://www.incontext.indiana.edu/2006/march/1.asp, Access Date: 25.10.2018

4 http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/metadata/Annexes/htec_esms_an3.pdf, Access Date: 09.07.2018

5 The NACE matchings of the sectors from the I-O table are presented in Table 2

6 The two primary sectors of the tourism cluster are, 51: Air transport services and 79: Travel agency, tour operator and other reservation services and related services. The LQ values of the primary sectors of Tourism in the TR22 Region (Balıkesir) are lower than 1,25. We therefore exclude TR22 Region (Balıkesir) since we cannot conclude that tourism is a highpoint economic activity.

7 The only sector of the health cluster for which TRA1 Region (Erzurum), TRC2 Region (Şanlıurfa) and TRC3 Region (Mardin) are specialized are, 80, 81, 82: Security and investigation services; services of buildings and landscape; office administrative Office support and other business support services; and 78: Employment services. 80, 81, 82 and 78 are secondary sectors of the health cluster template. Primary sectors of the health cluster are, 21: Basic pharmaceutical products and pharmaceutical preparations and 86: Basic pharmaceutical products and pharmaceutical preparations. As seen in Table 4, none of the regions has a LQ value of 1.25 or above in the primary sectors of the health cluster. Therefore, we conclude that the health cluster is not a highpoint economic activity in any of Turkey’s NUTS2 regions.