Browsing by Author "Togan, Asli"

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Colonialism in Sub-Saharan Africa, Access To Finance, and Firm Growth
(Elsevier, 2025) Ngalim, Lawrence; Togan, Asli
Whether adequate access to external finance matters for firm-growth remains an unsettled debate in the finance literature, mainly because of endogeneity concerns. In this paper, we approach these concerns with two instruments constructed from colonial history that plausibly explain the current variations in financial development across sub-Saharan African (SSA) economies. We conjecture that these instruments-- the firm's distance from a colonial railway station and whether it is located in an area that had colonial settlements-provide potential channels of impact that identify the present-day effects of access to finance on firm-growth across SSA. By using these instruments, empirical results underscore the primacy of access to finance in firmgrowth and consistently suggest that firms with access to finance are more likely to experience higher revenue growth and asset growth. Overall, our results are consistent and robust to alternative specifications and highlight the importance of access to finance for firms. Our findings provide policy implications on the development of the banking sector as well as private sector development.
The Private Equity Industry in Africa: Firm Survival and Growth
(Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2025) Ngalim, Lawrence; Togan, Asli
The availability of Private Equity (PE) in Africa is quite limited. And even though the literature documents that in other parts of the world, this type of financing can relieve entrepreneurial firms' financial constraints and likely benefit employment and firm growth, little is known about the effect of PE on firms operating in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This paper describes the landscape of PE in this region and analyzes whether private equity helps firms survive and grow. The results reveal that recipients of external financing from PE firms have a higher probability of survival than non-recipients, and such financing strongly correlates with proxies for firm growth. These results remain robust in a further attempt to alleviate endogeneity, using propensity score matching to estimate the difference in outcomes between recipients and non-recipients. Our results suggest that PE is an essential source of external financing for SSA firms and that governments should create incentives for investors and entrepreneurs.
Risk Perceptions and Financial Decision Making
(Elsevier, 2025) Togan, Asli; Tinic, Murat; Giray, Talha Cesim
We examine whether training individuals about the riskiness of financial products changes their risk perception in making financial decisions. Conducting a nationwide survey in T & uuml;rkiye, we first map individuals' use of regulated and unregulated financial products in borrowing, saving, and investing. We next train a randomly selected sample of people in three regions where use of unregulated or risky products is high and test their financial preferences by asking them to take the survey after the training. With controls for observable characteristics, our results suggest that training on the riskiness of financial products helps improve individuals' risk perception, and this improvement seems to motivate them to prefer regulated financial products and to seeking professional advice about borrowing, saving, and investment.
Citation - WoS: 1
Citation - Scopus: 2
Reforming External Debt Governance in Turkey to Reach External Debt Sustainability
(Elsevier, 2025) Togan, Asli; Togan, Subidey
The paper argues that the attainment and maintenance of external debt sustainability is challenging, and that it is not a choice. A country whose government fails to respect external debt sustainability would eventually default on its external debt. But in the case of default the penalty is the inability to borrow in international markets, and hence the cost of defaulting could be extremely high. The paper emphasizes the importance of having a functioning external debt governance system that will reduce the probability of explosive debt trajectories over time requiring solutions to the following three issues. First, in policy circles minds should be clear about the importance of achieving sustainability of external debt. Second, policy makers have to agree on the way to attain external debt sustainability. Based on empirical analysis, the paper recommends implementing legal reforms, reducing inflation, and devaluing when necessary the real exchange rate. Finally, the country needs to find a way to translate the concept of external debt sustainability into policy technicality. In particular, such a translation requires the development of an institution that when established will enable the country to avoid facing external debt problems over time. The paper proposes the creation of an independent public advisory body, the External Debt Council, equipped with adequate resources to ensure sustainable debt management, and building and sustaining social consensus in the society on the achievement of external debt sustainability that will bind not only the officials in the present government but also the officials in future governments.