Assoc. Prof. Serdar Altay

Biography

Serdar Altay is a faculty member at the Economics Department of Istanbul Technical University (ITU). He has been appointed as an Assistant Professor in May 2018. Dr. Altay’s recent research has focused on Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and Turkey (World Economy, 2018), U.S.-Turkey Economic Relations (Center for Transatlantic Relations, JHU SAIS: 2017), and EU-Turkey Customs Union. He has expertise in international trade, foreign direct investment and development issues, as well as in transatlantic economic relations and political economy of Turkey. At ITU, Dr. Altay teaches International Finance, Financial Economics, European Economics and Institutions as well as Intermediate Macroeconomics. As a seasoned investment and trade professional Dr. Altay has eighteen years of experience mostly in public sector. He started his professional career as a civil servant at the Turkish Ministry of Economy in Ankara where he served as a Trade Specialist and negotiator between 2000 and 2005. Between 2005-2008, he carried out doctoral research on GATT/WTO negotiations on services trade and investment at the University of Trento (Italy), University of Kassel (Germany), and University of Lausanne (Switzerland). He managed the trade programming of the German Marshall Fund of the United States between 2008-2011 at its headquarters in Washington, DC.  Finally, before joining ITU, he served as the Director of Sectorial and Strategic Analysis at Invest in Turkey (aka Investment Support and Promotion Agency of Turkey) for around 6 years. He led a team that carried out economic and policy analysis on investment trends, and strategic industries, and advised the Office of the Turkish Prime Minister on national investment attraction strategies. Dr. Altay is a graduate of the Middle East Technical University (Turkey) with a B.Sc. degree in International Relations and holds an M.A. degree in International Political Economy from Warwick University (UK). He also holds Ph.D. degrees in International Studies (Trento University) and in Economics and Social Sciences (Kassel University).