Associate Professor of Economics
Associate Professor of Economics
University of Texas at Tyler
University of Texas at Tyler
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Address: Department of Social Sciences
3900 University Blvd. Tyler, Texas, 75799
Email: msaygili@uttyler.edu
EDUCATION
Ph.D. Economics, University of Texas at Austin, May 2011
M.S. Economics, University of Texas at Austin, December 2007
B.A. Economics, Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey, June 2005
RESEARCH
Work in progress:
Trends and Disparities in Hospitalizations with Hyperglycemic Diabetes Complications before and after the COVID-19 Pandemic. (with Zehra Tekin) 2024
The Association of COVID-19 Pandemic with Diabetic Ketoacidosis Hospitalizations: Evidence from Texas. (with Gultekin Gollu and Zehra Tekin), 2024
Effect of Face Mask Policies on COVID-19 Cases: Evidence from San Antonio Schools. (with Gultekin Gollu), 2023
Organizational Form and the Adoption of New Medical Technologies in the Hospital Industry, 2020 (with Marco Castaneda)
The existence of multiple types of hospitals has been a topic of interest in the economics of organization and health policy research, and the question of whether not-for-profit and for-profit hospitals behave differently has attracted considerable attention. This paper contributes to the literature by investigating the effects of organizational form on the adoption of new medical technologies in the hospital industry. The results indicate that, after controlling for differences in market conditions, private not-for-profit hospitals are more likely to adopt a new medical technology. However, the effect of organization form decreases when we control for hospital characteristics such as scale of operations and teaching status. This suggests that private not-for-profit hospitals are more likely to adopt a new medical technology in large part because of the indirect effect that organizational form has on the scale of operations and teaching status of a hospital.Publications:
Association of Medicaid Expansion with Birth Outcomes: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Texas, BMC Public Health. 2024 Jun 3;24(1):1486. (with Esra Bayindir) https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-19007-6
The Association Between Medicaid Expansion and Diabetic Ketoacidosis Hospitalizations, Cureus. 2022 Oct 24;14(10). (with Zehra Tekin) doi:10.7759/cureus.30631
How Would Medicaid Expansion Affect Texas Hospitals? Evidence From a Retrospective Quasi-Experimental Study, INQUIRY: The Journal of Health Care Organization, Provision, and Financing, September 3, 2022: https://doi.org/10.1177/00469580221121534
Potential for Moral Hazard and Reason of Hospitalization: Evidence from Two Medical Conditions, International Journal of Health Planning and Management, May 2021 (with Marco Castaneda)
This paper investigates the effect of health insurance on the use of alternative procedures to treat a given medical condition. In particular, we estimate the effect of health insurance on the use of bypass surgery after a heart attack and on the use of C-section after a normal pregnancy. These procedures are the most expensive, compared to the alternatives. Theoretically, the demand for some procedures like bypass surgery is likely to be inelastic. In this situation, health insurance should have no effect on the use of the procedure. For other procedures such as C-section, demand may be more elastic, especially after a normal pregnancy without complications. We use a nationally representative data set of inpatient hospital admissions from the United States and control for individual and hospital characteristics. The results from our empirical analysis support our predictions. For patients admitted to a hospital because of a heart attack, being uninsured has no effect on the probability of bypass surgery. However, for patients admitted for childbirth, the uninsured have a substantially lower probability of a C-section delivery.Are Exporters Cleaner? Another Look at the Trade-Environment Nexus, Energy Economics, 2021, Volume 95 (with Evangelina Dardati)
We study how inference about the relationship between firms' export status and their emissions intensity depends on the means for measuring output. Firms' use of intermediate inputs (outsourcing), whose production entails emissions that typically are not attributed to the firm, underlies this. If export status is positively related to outsourcing, then the choice of output measure plays a key role in the inference and interpretation of the empirical export-environmental performance relationship. Using total sales, instead of value added, as an output proxy mechanically makes the exporters look cleaner. An analysis of microdata from Chile shows evidence consistent with our thesis. Using a simple firm-level emissions decomposition, we show formally why the distinction between sales and value added is important.The Effect of Shelter-in-Place Orders on Social Distancing and the Spread of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Study of Texas, Frontiers in Public Health -- Health Economics, 2020 (with Marco Castaneda)
We study how the state-wide shelter-in-place order affected social distancing and the number of cases and deaths in Texas.Please click here to reach the paper
Aggregate impacts of cap-and-trade programs with heterogeneous firms, Energy Economics, 2020, Volume 92 (with Evangelina Dardati)
We study the long-run effects on output, aggregate TFP, and welfare of alternative permit allocation schemes in a cap-and-trade program. We use a firm dynamics model with heterogeneous firms and add an emission market with a cap-and-trade regulation. We calibrate the model with establishment and emission data in the US and study three permit allocation methods: auctions, output-based-allocation, and grandfathering. A 40% reduction in emissions is associated with a welfare cost that is highest for auctioning (1.20%), followed by grandfathering (0.78%) and, finally, output-based allocation (0.70%). We also consider an endogenous abatement technology, which implies smaller but still significant welfare costs.Foreign Production and Environment: Does the Type of FDI Matter?, International Review of Applied Economics, 2020, Volume 34(6), pp. 721-733 (with Evangelina Dardati)
We examine the relationship between foreign ownership and the environmental performance of firms. We make a distinction between export-oriented and horizontal multinationals as they have different motivations and firm characteristics. Horizontal foreign direct investment substitutes for exports when trade costs are high, while export-oriented vertical multinationals geographically separate the stages of production primarily to exploit production cost differences across countries. Theoretically, it is not clear which type of foreign direct investment is dirtier. In this paper, we use micro data from Chile and find that export-oriented foreign firms have lower emission intensity than horizontal affiliates and domestic firms.Please click here to reach the paper
The Health Conditions and the Health Care Consumption of the Uninsured, Health Economics Review, 2016, Volume 6 (1), pp. 1-19. (With Marco Castaneda)
This paper investigates the difference in the health conditions and the health care consumption of uninsured individuals as compared to individuals with private insurance, using a nationally representative data set of inpatient hospital admissions from the US. In line with the previous literature, our results indicate that uninsured individuals are, on average, in worse health conditions. However, if we compare individuals within the same diagnosis category, the uninsured are actually healthier, with a lower number of chronic conditions and a lower risk of mortality. This indicates that the uninsured are admitted to the hospital only for more serious conditions. In addition, our results show that uninsured individuals consume less health care. In particular, conditional on being admitted to a hospital and controlling for health conditions, the uninsured have lower total charges, fewer procedures, and a higher mortality rate.Please click here to reach the paper
Pollution Abatement Costs and Productivity: Does the Type of Cost Matter? Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, 2016, Vol 9 (1), pp. 1-7.
This paper analyzes the effect of pollution abatement costs on the productivity of manufacturing industries. Two opposing views prevail on the topic: One view criticizes regulations for imposing excessive cost and reducing competitiveness of domestic firms. The second view, on the other hand, argues that regulations might encourage firms to seek for cleaner technologies hence, promote innovation and productivity. Using the U.S. industry data from 1988 to 1994, I find productivity is negatively related to pollution abatement costs. However, when analyzed separately, pollution abatement operating costs and pollution abatement capital expenditures produce different results. While the former is always negatively correlated with productivity, the results for the latter are not significant or even positive under some specifications. This reveals that how industries choose to comply with regulations might matter.Please click here to reach the paper
Financial Liberalization, Limited Contract Enforcement and Productivity, Journal of Globalization and Development, 2013, Vol 1 (4), pp. 95-130.
This paper investigates whether opening up to international financial flows improves aggregate productivity in the presence of limited contract enforceability. I present a model of two countries that differ in terms of the degree of contract enforcement and analyze the consequences of financial market integration among those countries. Then, I test the predictions of the model empirically. The model predicts that aggregate productivity improves after financial integration in economies with strong contract enforcement, and deteriorates in countries with weak enforcement. The empirical analysis confirms that the effect of capital account liberalization on productivity is different in economies with different degrees of contract enforcement.Please click here to reach the paper
Multinationals and Environmental Regulation: Are foreign firms harmful? Environment and Development Economics, 2012, Vol 17 (2), pp. 163-186 (With Evangelina Dardati)
The rise of globalization has directed the attention of economists to the effect of trade and multinational production on the environment. We ask whether multinational firms, frequently the target of environmentalist, are harmful for a host country's environment. We introduce environmental regulation in a two-country model of heterogeneous firms with monopolistic competition. Using plant-level data from Chile, we test the model implications. We find that foreign firms are cleaner than domestic plants even after controlling for productivity that is likely to be negatively correlated with emissions. We also show that increasing the stringency of environmental regulations in a previously unregulated market affects domestic firms more than multinationals.Unpublished manuscripts:
Plant Productivity and the Effect of Exporting, Best 2nd Year Paper Award, Bruce D. Smith Memorial Graduate Fellowship, 2010
Empirical work reveals that exporters have substantially higher productivity than non-exporters. The two explanations proposed for the apparent gap are: self-selection of firms into competitive export markets, and learning by exporting. The reasoning behind the self-selection hypothesis is that there exist fixed costs related to selling abroad. Hence, only the most productive firms can overcome those costs and serve foreign markets. Learning by exporting suggests that exporters acquire new technologies and product designs from their international contacts, which in turn results in higher productivity of exporters relative to their domestic counterparts. Knowing the direction of causality between productivity and exporting has important policy implications, yet the empirical studies find mixed results about learning forces, even though they agree on the existence of the selection effect. This paper applies matching techniques on plant-level data from Chile. I find clear evidence for self-selection; relatively more efficient firms become exporters. However, I do not detect further improvement in productivity following the entry into export markets.Please click here to reach the paper
Cross-country Differences in Returns to R&D, Presented at Macroeconomic Research Meeting, Bonn, Germany, May 9-10, 2008 (with Firat Yaman)
Are returns to R&D higher in poor countries? If so, why do we see so little R&D being conducted in poor countries? Few attempts have been made to answer the question whether returns to R&D differ systematically across countries. In this paper we improve on the methodology to estimate returns to R&D in a panel of countries. In keeping with the literature, we find that productivity is increased in poor countries more than in rich countries by R&D expenditures. Our main contribution is in proposing a model which is able to explain the paradoxical finding that despite higher returns less R&D is being conducted in poor countries.TEACHING
Statistics (graduate)
Managerial Economics (graduate, online)
Econometrics
Money, Banking, and the Federal Reserve System
International Macroeconomics and Finance
Principles of Microeconomics
Principles of Macroeconomics
Introduction to Economics
Dual Credit Introduction to Economics
Dual Credit Principles of Macroeconomics
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