Regional development trap and economic complexity in Turkey: Evidence from provincial data

This study aims to identify the provinces at risk of regional development traps in Turkey for the 2017-2021 period, as well as to uncover the statistical association between economic complexity and regional development traps. To achieve this, we calculated the modified regional development trap for Turkey by incorporating past regional performances and deviations from the national average. We also employed two different economic complexity measures derived from the literature. Our analysis indicates a negative correlation between regional development trap and economic complexity, suggesting that provinces with more complex productive structures may be less likely to fall into the trap.