Prof. ERDAL TANAS KARAGÖL

Prof. Dr. Erdal Tanas Karagöl was born in 1971 in the Çat district of Erzurum. He completed his middle and high school education at Çat High School and graduated with honors from Istanbul University, Faculty of Economics, in 1992.

In 1994, he won a government scholarship to pursue graduate studies abroad. He received an M.A. in Economics from the University of Connecticut (USA) in 1997 and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of York (UK) in 2002 with a dissertation titled “The Relationship Between External Debt and Economic Growth and the Risk of Debt Rescheduling.” He then returned to Turkey and began working as a faculty member at Balıkesir University and at the Faculty of Political Sciences of Yıldırım Beyazıt University to fulfill his compulsory service. He became an Assistant Professor in 2003, an Associate Professor in 2005, and a Professor in 2011.

He served on university executive boards and senates. In addition to Balıkesir University, he taught courses at Yıldız Technical University, Ankara University Faculty of Political Sciences, and TOBB University of Economics and Technology.

At Yıldırım Beyazıt University Faculty of Political Sciences, he served as a member of the executive board and the faculty council, as a senate member, and as Director of the Institute of Social Sciences. In 2012, he was elected as an associate member of the Turkish Academy of Sciences (TÜBA) by TÜBİTAK. He also served as a member of the executive committee of TÜBİTAK’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Support Group (SOBAG). He continues to serve on various committees of the Council of Higher Education (YÖK) and the Interuniversity Board (ÜAK).

His articles on topics such as external debt, international finance, IMF stand-by arrangements, economic growth, energy economics, defense economics, and employment have been published in journals indexed by the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI). For these works, he received multiple publication incentive awards from TÜBA and TÜBİTAK. As a result of these successful studies, a 2006 assessment ranked him among the top economists in Turkey. He has refereed for leading journals in energy economics and served as editor of the journal “Energy, Market and Regulation” published by the Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EPDK) and the Association of Energy Experts. He has authored chapters in numerous books and served as editor of several volumes. Alongside his extensive academic publishing, he worked in 2008–2009 as a coordination director at the Prime Ministry’s State Planning Organization and at the Center for EU Education and Youth Programs (National Agency).

Since 2009, at TÜBİTAK-BİLGEM-UEKAE, he has served as project coordinator for the “Development of a Scoring Formula for Identifying Social Assistance Beneficiaries” carried out for the Ministry of Family and Social Policies, General Directorate of Social Assistance. He also acted as project coordinator for the National Implementation Report of the Lifelong Learning Program and for the National Implementation Report of the Youth Programs, conducted jointly by TÜBİTAK-BİLGEM-UEKAE and the National Agency.

Moreover, under a protocol between the Ministry of Family and Social Policies and TÜBİTAK, he served as Coordinator of Social and Statistical Research & Development Projects in the preliminary analysis phase of the Social Services Information System.

Since 2009, Prof. Karagöl has served as a coordinator at TÜBİTAK-BİLGEM-UEKAE-G222 and, concurrently, as a management consultant in his role as Coordinator of Social and Statistical Research & Development Projects.

He took an active role in a project for the Privatization Administration comparing the productivity of enterprises before and after privatization; the results were published as a book.

He served as Director of Economy at the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA), a position he continues to hold. He has authored many reports and analyses for SETA, including “External Debt in Turkey: Past to Present,” “Employment in Turkey: General Trends and Patterns,” “Foreign Direct Investment in Turkey,” “The Turkish Economy in the AK Party Era,” “Credit Rating Agencies: Seeking Alternatives,” and “A New Period in Turkey–IMF Relations.” He also edited the Winter 2011 economy special issue of SETA’s journal Insight Turkey.

In addition to academic publications in leading international energy journals, he published analyses and briefs such as “Energy Outlook: Turkey,” “The Energy Exchange in Turkey,” and “Electricity Distribution Companies After Privatization.”

Alongside numerous academic works, he has written opinion pieces on current economic issues for the newspapers Sabah and Star and for the magazine Anlayış. He served as editor of the book “Economy and Social Policies in Turkey in the 2000s,” published by Meydan Publishing. 

He is currently a faculty member at the Faculty of Political Sciences, Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University.