Joining us on our Interviews with the Faculty Members pages, this issue is the new dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. With a successful career from basketball to engineering, economy and the TÜBİTAK Science Award, Mehmet Baç talks to us on his background, award, the financial crisis, world policies and art.
Following a high school diploma from the St. Michel French High School, Dr. Mehmet Baç received a BSc from the Electrical Engineering and Telecommunication Department of Istanbul Technical University in 1983. Baç received a master's degree in Economics from Boğaziçi University in 1986, and a doctorate degree from the Université Laval in Quebec, Canada in 1990. Baç has been giving lectures on game theory and economics at Sabancı University since 2002, and is currently the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS). Baç was most recently granted a TÜBİTAK Science Award for his "extraordinary international achievement in the design of an inspection, reward and penalty system to prevent authority abuse cases such as corruption and bribery in institutions in microeconomics".
Economics was a coincidence
Did you choose electrical engineering on purpose?
It was my first choice at the university exam. But I was hardly 18; nothing was “knowingly” at the time. We weren’t lucky as you are; we couldn’t change our program once we began. After three years, you just can’t go back; you want to see it through. In the end, 60% of it was lost time. I had always been more interested in science, but I did enjoy social subjects too. I wasn’t able to make a distinction between natural and social sciences for myself back then, and I still can’t. That’s why I chose a social science that has a large natural science aspect into it.
How and why did you choose economics?
It was a coincidence really. I was well into sports those days. I was a semi-professional player in the basketball team of Galatasaray. I wasn’t able to attend laboratory classes due to practices. My engineering theory wasn’t bad; I could compete with others. But my practice was weak since I missed all laboratory classes. Then I did a few internships. I was told that my soldering was really awful. In fact, one of the workers there told me off one day because of my handiwork. I blew my top and finished my internship elsewhere. Thanks to these internships, I decided I wasn’t going to become an engineer. The engineers there toiled from 9 to 6; they could only spare themselves an hour or two on weekends. And they were paid peanuts. I didn’t want to be one of them. This is how I gave up on electric engineering.
It was an intense period, leading up to 1980. The military intervention and all cost me a few more years. Social issues had always been of interest to me. I tried to decide between administration and economics, and found myself going for economics. I loved the subject as I did my master’s, and decided to go for postgraduate. These wouldn’t even have crossed my mind 3-4 years ago. But the times have changed. I see people who plan their postgraduate education 10 years in advance.
You mentioned playing basketball at university. In fact, the "Ekşi Sözlük" website calls you "the İbrahim Kutluay of his day". Do you still play basketball?
It must be quite an old "student" that remembers both periods. I still do play at the Sports Hall. Last night I shot a few rounds. The place was deserted because of the football match. The school is crowded now, so the Sports Hall is packed in the evenings.
I’m always under surveillance!
Your studies and courses are on game theory. Do you make up game theories in your everyday life, and solve problems through such theories?
I must be under the influence of the concept. You don’t realize it right off the bat, but it must be the case. I think all economics students are somewhat under the influence of this, because of their education. At the very least, there is something called experimental economics, which includes suggestions like "this is how people behave under such conditions". Game theory has these kinds of suggestions, too. These are tested with real subjects. You must have heard of the Prisoner’s Dilemma. To test these theories, they sit people down in front of computers and make them choose what they would do in various conditions. They make sure that subjects are not economics students because they know how to think strategically. They know how the person opposite them will think, and they think accordingly. Working on these subjects does instill a degree of unwanted distrust for the people around you. You begin to view them differently. For instance, there is a clock that sits at the top of the oven in our kitchen; it turns out that my wife set it a few minutes late the other day. And then, when I was hurrying to get my little one prepared for school, my wife turns around and says, "Don't panic; the clock is five minutes fast anyway," proving that we have been defeated by our own rationality.
Are there any disadvantages to working at the same school as your wife?
There would be if I were a different person, but there isn't. My wife can locate me whenever she wants, and this might not be too good for some! I'm always under surveillance!
Let's talk about your award a little. Why did you pick bribery to work on?
The inspiration comes from life. There is economics theory on the one hand, and real-life issues that you seek to explain by using it on the other. Researchers, especially those working on theory, pick their fields by looking for deficits. There were deficits in the literature of this field. Subjects untouched, subjects with questions… I was interested in it, too. Images of the customs check when I was returning from Canada to Turkey are still vivid in my mind. There was no money involved, but it was a sorry sight nevertheless. You could see just what kinds of relations existed. People were surprised that I was trying to pass without any sort of intermediary. They assumed I was the director's man, so they took a step back. Shortly, we may call it real experiences, my own curiosity, and the gaps in literature.
What exactly was your field of research?
It was on the question how to prevent or minimize cases of authority abuse, not bribery, in an insti-tution where there are people who are inclined to use their position and authority for their personal gain. Inspectors must be inspected too, because they may be involved in the scheme and cooperate with the abusers. Can we prevent all this with fines and punishments, and what will be the cost? I asked these questions and analyzed the possibilities. It was all on paper of course. I mean, I didn't go to the customs and conduct a field study.
How long did your research take?
It took years. And I'm still working on it. I began in the mid-1990s, and have published 6 articles so far.
Can your work be applied in Turkey?
It can be applied anywhere. The theories in those articles indicate the probable outcome of having a specific reward program under given conditions. They can be applied in Peru or in Turkey with no difference. But there are things that need to be studied. The wages people earn, the bribes they can give, bribes they can take, and how much of benefit those bribes will be… In order to talk about applicability, these variables must be measurable too.
Does your award have any effect on your promotion to dean?
No; it was decided before that. We shouldn't call this a promotion either; that's not how we see it. It's a service of some sort. Of course, it is highly prestigious. People began to take more notice of me.
As the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, how interested are you in arts?
Art is an endeavor, an intellectual aspiration that I love but cannot devote much time to. I have always tried to keep a wide scope on things, and purposely refrained from going too deep into any field in particular. I've always tried to keep a range of interests as wide as possible, and art always had a place in this. I read a lot and try to see exhibitions. Right now I love my job because I have to pay attention to them all. For example, if it weren't for the reception, I may have been unable to visit the Dali exhibition. This does have a little to do with the size of the city as well. The trip from the school to the museum would take half a day. If the Dali exhibition had been in Orhanlı, I would have visited it several times.
Do you have any preferences in literature?
It's great to be able to read French literature in its native language. Some languages have their mo-numents. Just like Oscar Wilde is a monument for English, I find Marcel Proust to be a monument for French. His A la recherche du temps perdu is my favorite work. He is a master of the language. His sentences may be a paragraph long, but you are never lost in them.
Your French must have helped in Canada…
The French spoken in Canada is something altogether different. I kept wondering what language they were speaking during my first days there. With time, I developed an affinity and began to understand. Anyway, Montréal is the confluence of the English and French rivers in Canada. There are many native English speakers in Quebec. Of course, there is some tension between the two groups. Posting bills in English is forbidden, for example. There may be opponents to this, and it may be utter nonsense to some, but people do go to these extents to preserve languages.
We are all in the same ship, so we sink together
Turning to current issues, was it apparent that a global financial crisis was approaching?
Crises are supposed to occur suddenly. There were some who foresaw it, but no one could know for sure. There were few people who had insider information on the gravity of the situation. It wasn’t foreseeable like the collapse of communism. The main problem was giving out loans with a high risk of nonperformance. When they weren’t repaid, the crash occurred. At the root of the problem lies the system’s inability to make clear assessments of who to give loans to. We believed that companies ran their own self-control mechanisms with respect to this. The crisis began with the insolvency of companies in the finance and construction industries, and the rest just broke loose. Everything came down in one fell swoop.
Can we say that capitalism is facing problems?
Most definitely; there is a problem of dysfunction. But it’s not that insurmountable a dilemma to be making such bold assertions. This crisis will cause stagnation. It won’t be like the Great Depression, but even a 10% drop in production is going to have a significant impact on the world. It would be wrong to interpret this as one person out of 10 losing his job, but we can say that incomes will drop by this percentage. Yet, countries approach the crisis in coordinated fashion. I do believe in this theory; humanity pulls itself together a little when on the brink of a disaster. When a fire breaks out in a village, everyone scrambles to throw water on it. It’s something like that. We are all in the same ship, so we sink together if we do. Well of course there is the issue of I should throw fewer buckets and he should throw more. But there is cooperation in general. I can’t be called an expert, but I’m somewhat optimistic in this matter.
Will the blow of the crisis really be softened in Turkey?
That’s a relative issue. Turkey today will definitely be affected less compared to Turkey 8 years ago. If we had been in the situation we had been in 8 years ago, we would have been torn apart. The banking sector was struggling to stand on its feet back then. On the other hand, it depends on who you compare Turkey to. The problem stemmed from the United States. If you are too connected to an outsider, you keel over when they stumble. The less global you are, the better you fare at times of crisis. Take old Albania, for example, with its closed economy. How much could this crisis impact them? On the other hand, if you stay local, you cannot reap the benefits of change. You have limited import and export opportunities, and don’t do well at normal times.
I wish we could roll back time so that the errors of Bush were not made
As an economist, how do you think the election of Obama as President will affect the world?
Positively, positively, positively… Everyone’s positive on that. People are celebrating victory. I hope everything does turn out to be as positive as they believe. But there are some things that he won’t be able to do either. The past will force him onto some ongoing policies. One can’t just step clear of a bog; he may be forced to maintain some policies that he doesn’t support; there may even be pressure on him to do so. Some things may change if he’s reelected, but not before. We don’t know how he will manage the crisis either. It is known that some apparently populist leaders have caused sharp declines in their countries, like Peron. I hope Obama won’t make this mistake. It would be bad if he were to end the war right away. He must withdraw gradually to prevent matters from taking a turn for the worse. Actually, I wish we could roll back time so that the errors of Bush were not made. If it weren’t for him, Saddam could have died of natural causes by now.
Finally, the way you ask students to write their answers on the back of scrap paper has made you known as an environmentalist professor. Do you suggest any other work for the environment?
I wish; but I can’t go beyond throwing bottles in glass containers. We must create awareness in this matter. There are some who print everything out just because it’s free. If they were to pay for it, they wouldn’t be so generous with the paper. If you have any projects, do come to me. I would love to work with student clubs on environmental matters.
* This interview was published in the March 2009 issue of Okyanus.
Interview by: Emre Eminoğlu ( emreeminoğlu@su.sabanciuniv.edu )
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