CUSTOMER PROFILE and SOCIO-DEMOGRAPHIC EFFECTS On The NUMBER Of PUBLICLY TRADED COMPANIES: The CASE Of TÜRKİYE

This study examines the dynamics of initial public offerings (IPOs) from a customer-centric perspective, investigating the impact of socio-demographic and macroeconomic variables on the number of publicly traded companies in Turkey. The research utilizes annual World Bank data from 1990–2023. The dependent variable is the number of publicly traded domestic companies (LIST), while the independent variables are literacy rate, urbanization rate, female unemployment rate, early marriage rate, health expenditures, GDP per capita, economic growth, inflation, and exchange rate. Descriptive statistics, Spearman rank correlation coefficient, and Generalized Linear Modeling (Logit) were applied in the analysis. Descriptive findings reveal that the number of publicly traded companies increased during the 1990–2000 period, decreased until 2003, followed a fluctuating and relatively horizontal trend during the 2003–2014 period, increased in 2017, decreased afterwards, and rose again after 2021. According to the correlation analysis results, the number of publicly traded companies has positive and statistically significant relationships with literacy rate (r=0.540), female unemployment rate (r=0.550), GDP per capita (r=0.460), and exchange rate (r=0.731). A negative and significant relationship was found with urbanization rate (r=-0.679). Logit model results show that literacy rate, GDP per capita, and urbanization rate have significant effects on the number of publicly traded companies.