In recent years, there has been a considerable amount of research on the productivity growth in the manufacturing sector at the regional level in many countries.(See, for example, Mas et al., 2000; Weber and Domazlicky, 1999; Melachroinos and Spence, 2001). Regarding Turkey, there have been a considerable number of studies dealing with productivity in the manufacturing sector. See, for example, Krueger and Tuncer, 1982; Yıldırım, 1989; Uygur, 1990; Gökcekuş 1997, Karadağ et. al 2004). In spite of the fact there is a relatively extensive literature on total factor productivity (TFP) in Turkish manufacturing sector, there appears to be a shortage of studies at regional level. To the authors’ best knowledge, this study is the first attempt to measure changes in TFP and in its components in the Turkish private manufacturing industry in the geographic regions at the geographic regional level. Studying TFP changes in the Turkish private manufacturing industry at regional level gains importance, as this will give some information about the comparative advantage of each region in terms of productivity. Moreover, investigation of the causes of changes in productivity at regional level will be helpful in formulating economic policies for the reduction of disparities between the seven geographic regions. The elimination of regional disparities has been a crucial dimension of Turkish regional policies. Thus, the evaluation of productivity performance of the regions becomes an important concept.

Thus, the main objective of this study is to compute total factor productivity change of the Turkish private manufacturing industry in the geographical regions by using panel data for the period 1980-2000. We employ the Malmquist productivity index developed by CAVES et al., 1982 for the aim of the study. In our study, following FÄRE et al., 1994, productivity growth is considered as a joint effect of the shift in the production frontier (technological progress) and a movement towards the frontier (efficiency). Regarding this, the data envelopment analysis (DEA) technique is employed to calculate changes in productivity and in its components. The remainder of this paper is organised as follows. Section two gives brief background information about regional economics of Turkey. In section three, Section the methodology used in the study is explained. Section four provides information about the data set used in the study. Evaluation of the results are summarised and discussed in section five. The paper concludes with a summary analysis of the findings in section six.