Seda Basihos

One of my most cherished projects. Eight years in the making, it has finally found a remarkable home. A long journey, and this research was featured in the Financial Times in its early days as a "neat theory" for the productivity puzzle. Final draft here: dropbox.com/scl/fi/97aic5b…

My paper (forthcoming, Journal of Economic Growth) shows that accelerated capital obsolescence can help account for several structural trends in the U.S., including the productivity slowdown and the falling labor share. #productivity #economics #technology #AI

A 5-year-old laptop already feels ancient. Flash ran the web for years, then HTML5 made it obsolete. AI models from two years ago? Already outdated. Technology designs just don't last long anymore.

I wrote for @ProMarket_org : How Rising Corporate Market Power Undermines Democracy    promarket.org/2026/01/05/how…

How much of aggregate fluctuation is hiding in M&A activity? @BasihosSeda shows that mergers drive large short-run, firm-specific productivity shocks, and these shocks explain about 20% of variations in U.S. economic growth. ➡️janeway.econ.cam.ac.uk/working-paper-…

When big firms acquire does it matter for the economy? #JMC @BasihosSeda's #JMP isolates firm-specific productivity shocks due to mergers using a latent factor model. A size-weighted aggregate of these shocks explains ~1/5 of U.S. growth fluctuations. sedabasihos.com

The Faculty of Economics is pleased to announce its 2025 Job Market Candidates. A complete list of the JMCs can be found here: econ.cam.ac.uk/people/job-mar… Over the next few days, we will introduce each of them with a tweet on their JMP, plus details of their career and research.

Are monopolies destroying democracy? New paper by @BasihosSeda says yes. Using idiosyncratic firm-level shocks to estimate a causal effect, the increase in markups can explain about a quarter of the global democracy decline. For the US, it's 42%.

Now published online (In Press): (Market) power is (political) power! The pressure of declining competition on democracy sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

📌 Full draft can be found here: dropbox.com/scl/fi/302u2vk… Comments welcome!

How much of aggregate fluctuations is hiding in M&A activity? 📄 In my new working paper, I show that M&A activity drives big, short-run firm-level productivity shocks — and these shocks explain ~20% of variations in output growth. #EconTwitter #Macro #Mergers #EconomicGrowth

@cakir_rusen @eucak Sevgili Ruşen Çakır, Türkiye’nin ihtiyacı olan tek şey herkese eşit mesafede bir hukuk devleti. Seküler-dindar eksenindeki çıkar çatışması veriyken, CHP’nin bir siyasi parti olarak her kesime ulaşmasını beklemek kendi kendini yanlışlayan bir durum.

CHP dindar kesimlere ulaşıyor mu? (Video) medyascope.tv/2025/04/17/chp… @eucak

“It’s like they’re working from the same playbook.” An expert on modern Turkey talks to @IChotiner about the similarities and differences between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s authoritarian style and that of Donald Trump. nyer.cm/DrhGeQ6

Between these two forces Turkey stands at a crossroads. One can only hope that history’s pulse proves stronger than the current global tide.

(ii) the external force — a global rise of authoritarianism. This wave of creeping autocracy does not spare Turkey of course; indeed, it has struck her early and hard.

Two powerful currents shape the fate of democracy in Turkey. (i) the historical persistence —“democracy breeds its own support.” Turkey has a legacy of electoral practice, dating back nearly two centuries. So, there is a deep force constantly pulling the nation back on track.

I am concerned that jailing İmamoglu (Erdogan’s natural rival) is just the beginning of Turkey’s slide into full autocracy. If this truly is the trajectory the country is on, we will see much worse down the line.

Análisis de 80 países entre 1990-2019 señala que el aumento del poder de mercado de las empresas conduce a una concentración del poder político, lo que empeora los indicadores institucionales de la democracia: aumenta corrupción y empeoran transparencia y rendición de cuentas.

First day of interviewing prospective #economics candidates at the @Cambridge_Uni, together with the wonderful Elisa Faraglia, @BasihosSeda, and @rys_williams, and where better to do it than John Maynard #Keynes' old set (where he lived and worked at @Kings_College) and with a magnificent mural by Duncan Grant painted for Keynes in the background! Look forward to seeing more candidates tomorrow.