Spatial Trends of Capital Concentration in Türkiye: An Analysis of the Top 1000 Industrial Firms

Abstract

Industries, firms, and capital are geographically concentrated in the core regions of the countries which leads to regional disparities. Türkiye, as a developing country, suffers from high regional disparities, especially regarding east-west duality. In this context, this study analyzes the spatial concentration of the top firms in the regions of Türkiye (81 NUTS 3) in the 1999-2019 period, using the İstanbul Chamber of Industry’s top 500 and second 500 companies’ datasets. As one of the few studies conducted in this field, this study reveals important results. The differences regarding the spatial concentration of capital accumulation are decreasing in Türkiye; however, the level of capital accumulation disparities is quite uneven and high. The number of top firms is decreasing in the core regions of Türkiye, namely İstanbul (535 to 321), Ankara (73 to 58), and İzmir (104 to 76). Considering the decline in Turkey's largest companies, it is clear that these losses indicate a large loss of industrial assets. On the other hand, the number of firms among the top 1000 firms is increasing in the regions called Anatolian Tigers, namely Gaziantep (17 to 61), Kayseri (16 to 28), Sakarya (4 to 14) and Konya (10 to 22). The analyses show that the east-west duality has not changed but is restructured with the emergence of the New Industrial Spaces of Türkiye. It can be said that the areas where capital is concentrated have changed.

Keywords

• Capital accumulation
• Economic geography
• Regional disparities
• Türkiye