Economics and politics of Turkish liberalization

Mehmet Odekon is Professor of Economics at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. He received his undergraduate degree in economics from Bogazici University in Istanbul, Turkey. He won a Turkish government scholarship to pursue graduate work in the United States and earned his Ph.D. in economics at the State University of New York, Albany. After working at Bogazici University and at the European Institute of Business Administration in Fontainebleau, France, he joined Skidmore in 1982.

Dr. Odekon’s research interests include the political economy of development and globalization and domestic and international poverty and income equality. He is the editor of the Encyclopedia of World Poverty (Sage, 2006), and he coedited Economic Liberalization and Labor Markets (Praeger, 1998), Political Economy of Turkish Liberalization (Lehigh University Press, 1991), and Liberalization and the Turkish Economy (Praeger, 1988). He authored several articles and Costs of Economic Liberalization in Turkey. In these publications he analyzes the effects of the dominant world economic order on economically disadvantaged groups.

Dr. Odekon co-curated an interdisciplinary exhibit at the Tang Teaching Museum, Skidmore College, titled “Classless Society” (November 2013–March 2014). The exhibition, along with its Web site and catalogue, explores the myth that the United States is a classless society. He is currently working on a project on worker-owned cooperatives in the United States.