Sena Ekin Coskun

Statement of Purpose

Coming from an emerging economy provides me with a keen interest in how the economy functions.
The 1990’s were difficult times for the Turkish economy. Frequent crises, very high inflation and
financial distress were part of ordinary life. Hence, economic questions constituted a big part of my
interests from very early on. Thus, my aim for applying for PhD program is to become a profound
researcher and dedicated acedemic in the field of Economics, following up on this early interest.
Below, my courses, teaching experiences, research experiences and research interests are explained.

I have graduated from Lycée de Galatasaray in Istanbul, the most influential high school of Turkey,
which has a history going back more than five hundred years and is considered the country’s “Window
to the West” after the 19th century. The language of education was French. The strong education
system of my college provided me with not only a discipline of studying but also an ability of
questioning thanks to philosophy and literature courses taught in French by French professors. These
have prepared me early on for graduate level study.

I was ranked 9th in the Turkish University Entrance Exam in 2006 from among more than 2 million
test takers and I was ranked 1st in the entrance of Economics Department of Bogazici University which
is the most prestigious university in Turkey. I have chosen Economics due to my interest in economic
affairs and since it is a quantitative social science which tries to examine in a rigorous way the most
prominent facts which affect everyone. Thanks to my success, I have been rewarded with the Prime
Ministry Scholarship which includes a monthly stipend equal to the minimum wage in Turkey.
Moreover, I have been rewarded with the Achievement Scholarship by the university.

During my undergraduate study, I have taken many mathematics and statistics courses, some of which
were mandatory (Calculus I-II, Mathematical Statistics I-II, Linear Algebra, Econometrics I and
Mathematics for Economists). In addition to them, I have taken Differential Equation and Introduction
to Real Analysis courses, also I am taking Graduate Econometrics I (EC531). Due to the fact that I was
at Erasmus program at HEC Paris, I have not yet taken some advanced level courses. However, I am
going to take Advanced Microeconomics, Advanced Econometrics, Advanced Macroeconomics and
also Numerical Analysis courses next semester.

During 2010 spring term, I studied at HEC Paris for a semester. I chose HEC since it is a very
prestigious university. I also wanted to take advanced level courses and spend a semester in France. It
was a great experience for me in the sense that I had the oppurtunity to take theoretical courses such as
Theory of Finance and also courses which are related to microeconomics and rational economic
decision making such as Decision Analysis, Psychology of Decision Making and Rational Choice. In
the Theory of Finance course, I have learned the underlying microeconomic principles in Finance, the
concept of arbitrage pricing in discrete and continuous time. In Decision Analysis, Psychology of
Decision Making and Rational Choice courses, I have learned how the bounded rationality and
imperfect information affect people’s decisions in the microeconomic context. Hence, during my
Erasmus program, I have learned how theoretical economic principles are crucial and how they can be
applied in real life situations. Moreover, my overall grade in Erasmus Program was 3.61/4.00.

Last year, I took Europe Customs Union & Turkey course (EC475). This course provided me not only
with a general knowledge about economic considerations of the European Union, but also with my first
hands-on economic research experience. Throughout the course, we examined the economic impact of
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Sena Ekin Coskun

EU accession on the Central and Eastern European countries in three major area which were financial
economy, real economy and growth and development. Although there were some difficulties with the
data, the results demonstrated that there was not a common trend shift after the accession among these
countries. While some are affected significantly from the accession, we could not conclude that
accession had had positive impact for all the countries. The topics in this course and the research
experience increased my interest on economic research and I decided to pursue a PhD degree in
economics in this course.

Bogazici University places a great emphasis on computer skills, I have learned to use E-views, Matlab
and Gauss thanks to my advanced econometrics courses. Also, I am interested in computer
programming, I learned C programing language last summer and I am going to study C++ next
semester.

Beginning with my sophomore year, I have been working as a Teaching Assistant in the Economics
Department for various economics courses (Macroeconomics I-II, Mathematical Statistics,
Mathematics for Economists and Econometrics). I am holding regular problem solving sessions each
week. My duties include explaining course material, teaching new topics and solving related problems.
Being a teaching assistant provided me a prominent experience and better understanding of courses that
I have studied.

Furthermore, I consantrated on advanced level research courses this semester. For my Growth and
Development course (EC 471), I am going to examine “child labor” issue in Turkey as well as Turkey’s
position in development rankings which are taking “children” as their considerations. I will take
Children Development Index as a benchmark and compare Turkey’s performance relative to other
developing and developed economies.

Moreover, in my current Economic Policy (EC 403) course, we are reading prominent papers from
various perspectives about issues such as growth policy, fiscal policy, labor market, open economy and
political economy. Being familiar with the economic literature has provided me the knowledge of
various fields of economics, ability to recognize and develop economic models and enhanced my
research abilities. As my final project, I am going to examine the relationship between minimum wage
increases and results of the elections in Turkey using logit and probit models. More specifically, my
aim is to see whether the results of the elections are affected by the minimum wage decisions of the
incumbent party. According to the previous literature in Turkey, there is a significant increase in fiscal
expenditures during election years but this does not have a significant effect on the election results.
What I would like to show is that minimum wage levels are usually increased in nominal terms in
election years but this is not translated into real increase due to inflationary pressure of the fiscal
policies. Hence, people do not respond to nominal increases in wage levels.

During my graduate studies, I would like to focus on Microeconomics, Game Theory and Behavioral
Economics. More specifically I would like to study rational human decision making, bounded
rationality and decision making under uncertainity. I will graduate next semester as the 2nd of my class
having taken many math courses, graduate level economics courses and having various research
experiences. I think that I have prepared myself well for graduate studies and I believe that TSE is well
suited for my research interests. I have also had a chance to see TSE and have a deeper knowledge
about the university thanks to friends studying there. Hence, I believe that I will be successful at TSE
and I would like to continue my studies there.
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