The impact of changes in Turkey’s hazelnut policy on world markets

The present study analyzes the manner in which changes in Turkeyʹs hazelnut policies shall affect the world hazelnut markets via price impacts of these policy changes. For this aim, a multi-region partial equilibrium model for Turkey, Italy, Spain, USA and Germany, the main participants in the world hazelnut market, was developed. Since most of the world hazelnut production and export belongs to Turkey, export prices of Turkey were accepted as data for the world markets. In the model, the manner in which changes in Turkeyʹs hazelnut policies reflects upon the international markets via prices was explained. Besides, scenarios with regard to Turkeyʹs possible policy changes were given and with the help of the estimated model, future conditions of exports and imports of the countries participating in the international hazelnut market were estimated. According to the model results, it is expected that a decrease in Turkeyʹs hazelnut production areas would lead to an increase of its effectiveness in international markets. The decrease in production areas shall raise the prices. However, it is expected that prices remaining stable shall increase the amount of hazelnut exports of Turkey. Therefore, this situation shall increase Turkeyʹs hazelnut export income and decrease other exporter countriesʹ exports and their impact on the market. In order to achieve these results, legal arrangements done by Turkey with respect to narrowing the production areas should be successfully implemented.