macroeconomics and international trade analysis of turkey
DESCRIPTION
Over the past couple of decades, Turkey has been an emerging economy with many struggles and successes. In this country analysis, we will detail how their economy fared over those decades and where we see the economy in the future. We hope to highlight their steady growth periods and their economic and financial crises during this time. We will take a look at some economic indicators and give a background of monetary and fiscal policies they have used.TRANSCRIPT
Country Report: Turkey
December 14, 2012
Duan, Lan
Hammond, Adam
Singhal, Ishaan
Over the past couple of decades, Turkey has been an emerging economy with many
struggles and successes. In this country analysis, we will detail how their economy fared over
those decades and where we see the economy in the future. We hope to highlight their steady
growth periods and their economic and financial crises during this time. We will take a look at
some economic indicators and give a background of monetary and fiscal policies they have used.
GDP Analysis:
http://evds.tcmb.gov.tr/yeni/cbt-uk.html
There are four metrics that could be used to evaluate Turkey’s historical GDP. By
analyzing its growth trend, prosperity, distribution, and composition of output we can see a
holistic view on Turkey’s economy, and thus, make a better prediction.
First, when looking at its growth trend and prosperity, we found that from 1998 to 2012,
in general, Turkey’s Real GDP has a positive linear growth trend. Also, it caught our attention
that whenever Turkey had an increase in GDP, it was followed by a small fallback in its
economy. Turkey constantly had higher total output than previous years, and overall, the
economy generated the positive trend. However, in 2009, the economy was going through a
financial crisis, causing the economy to fall back to the level of mid 2007. But soon, in the
middle of 2009, the economy was recovering and quickly got back to the level before the crisis,
illustrating a prosperous developing trend up to the current level.
In terms of its distribution and composition of output, we can clearly see the most
important input lifting Turkey’s GDP upward, is its domestic consumption. Also, we can see that
in Turkey, non-resident expenditure within the country makes up a visible percentage. Therefore,
we can infer that Turkey has a strong tourism industry and strong investment opportunities the
country can partly rely on to continue expansion.
Unemployment:
Seasonally adjusted unemployment rate (%)
9,0
11,0
13,0
15,0
2005/1 2005/7 2006/1 2006/7 2007/1 2007/7 2008/1 2008/7 2009/1 2009/7 2010/1
Unemployment rate (original) Unemployment rate (seasonally adjusted)
Seasonally adjusted labor force participation rate (%)
44,0
46,0
48,0
2005/1 2005/7 2006/1 2006/7 2007/1 2007/7 2008/1 2008/7 2009/1 2009/7 2010/1
Labour force participation rate (original) Labour force participation rate (seasonally adjusted)
http://www.turkstat.gov.tr/PreHaberBultenleri.do?id=8401As time is needed to compute seasonally adjusted employment rate, we only have access
to the data through 2010. But it does not have an influential impact on the analysis. As the first
graph shows, before 2008, the unemployment rate was stable with little fluctuation. However, in
2008, due to the financial crisis, the unemployment rate soared to almost 15%. Later, the rate fell
back to 13%, but still remained high through the whole year. According to the latest data on
Turkey’s unemployment rate of 8.8%, we can see Turkey has been recovering from the crisis,
and is undergoing a quick development leading to an unemployment rate even lower than that of
2005.
By the Labor force participation rate, we can see that about 46.5% of the Turkish
population, during 2005 to the end of 2007, was actively in the labor force, while in 2008 there
was a downturn. After 2008, the participation rate has been increasing. This shows Turkish
residents are positive about their future development and willing to work. This illustrates that,
though Turkey has been traumatized by the economic recession, it pulled itself together to
become prosperous.
Inflation:
As the graphs show, prices in Turkey have been facing inflation. From the base year till
now, the both PPI and CPI have doubled over the past 10 years. However, its GDP has
quadrupled from 2003 till now, meaning that Turkey is quickly developing regardless of
inflation. As within the previous two parts, the PPI increased steeply in 2008, but soon regressed
back to the trend.
Producer Price Index (base year: 2003)
Consumer Price Index (Base year: 2003)
http://evds.tcmb.gov.tr/yeni/cbt-uk.html
It is surprising that in 2008, CPI in Turkey did not fluctuate drastically with the recession.
Turkey’s government must have done a good job to control the price inflation within a consistent
level, or the financial crisis did not have as much of an influence on the average residents’ daily
life as we presumed.
Interest Rates:
http://evds.tcmb.gov.tr/yeni/cbt-uk.html
The short-term interest rates (from 1 month to 1 year) from 2005 to 2012 have been
through a lot of changes. It is quite obvious that in 2008, the interest rate was as high as 26%.
We think there were two reasons that accounted for the phenomena. First, inflation made money
available in market more accessible. Therefore, the central bank had to increase the interest rate
to attract savings. Second, the recession triggered the insecurity of residents. They were trying to
spend for the fear of their money losing value. Thus, the high interest rates could partially ease
their fear and insecurity, and also attract the saving to prevent the malicious cycle of creating
more financial bubbles, which could potentially deteriorate the economy.
- Long-Term Interest Rate
www.tradingeconomics.com
As the information available to Turkey Government Bond 10Y only includes the data from
March to December in 2012, therefore, the analysis can be subject to short-sighted view.
From the graph above, we can see that at the beginning of the year, the long-term interest rate is
about 9.75%, and then gradually going through a downturn. Now, the current long-term interest
rate is 6.5%, which has been undergone about 33.5% decrease.
Compared with Turkey’s Inflation Rate, which fluctuated almost exactly as that of long-term
interest rate, we can see that actually investment in the long-term financial products is meaning
less as after the adjustment to the nominal interest rates, there is no profits from the 10Y bond at
all. Buyers will go through losses because overall the inflation rate is higher than the long-term
interest rate. From this, we can infer that Turkey central bank is trying to encourage spending
and consumption within the country instead of saving. We think one of the most important
reasons for the phenomena is that Turkey’s economy relies on consumption, and their low export
rate shows that their products are targeting the domestic market other than international market.
Thus, if Turkey central bank set up a high interest rate, especially a high long-term interest rate,
it would lock up the assets within the country, and consumption will greatly decrease, thus make
a negative influence on it GDP, by which could probably cause another liquidity crisis as it
happened in 1994.
Exchange Rates with USD:
The value of the Turkish Lira has been fairly consistent since 2002. It has fluctuated
within the range of 1.2 – 1.8 Lira/USD. In 2001, we saw a major depreciation in the Lira as it
became much weaker against the dollar. This was caused by the liquidity crisis in Turkey.
Therefore, the purchase power parity for an individual Turkish Lira is decreasing with the
exchange rates. There are some time-periods to focus on. In 2008 and in the middle of 2009,
Turkish Lira seemed to go through a difficult time to maintain its current value as the recession
was happening in 2008. But now, the Turkish Lira’s value is stable. Turkey is not a big country
for exports; therefore, the current exchange rate, which has depreciated recently, should be
advantageous for expanding exports.
Balance of Trade:
As a developing nation, and economy, Turkey’s exports and imports have been growing
substantially and due to a rising GDP per capita PPP and a strengthening, the imports remain
above the exports.
There are three points of interest when regarding the exports and imports since 1990. The
first point of interest is in 1994, when imports and exports both faced a sharp decline. The
second point of interest is around early 2001 when imports decreased substantially where there
was a trend of imports breaking away from exports. The other point of interest is in 2008, where
both imports and exports see a sharp drop, from which, they have just recovered.
http://evds.tcmb.gov.tr/yeni/cbt-uk.html
The peak of the graph in 1994 was due to a financial crisis faced by Turkey. Within a
more focused graph, we can see just how powerful the drop was during that time period. We see
a steep drop in the exports and imports represented in the graph. In fact, from the peak of the
time period, to the trough, exports decrease by 38% and imports decreased by 57%. Both of
these drastic changes came due to high inflation in the Lira.
In late 2000, early 2001, the drop was due to the liquidity crisis. This crisis took a toll on
the economy for a brief period of time and resulted in a period where between “November 20-
December 5 2000 ... US$6.4 billion net foreign exchange outflow took place and the overnight
inter-bank interest rates soared to 1,700%....”i This small period of exaggerated interest rates and
monetary outflow created pressure on the economy and imports plummeted 43% from $5.36
billion to $3.04 billion as the currency weakened. This crisis will be touched on again later in the
paper, but for now, we blame Bush for it since he was 17 at the time and most likely already
accepting money to play football.
http://evds.tcmb.gov.tr/yeni/cbt-uk.html
In 2008, there was a global financial crisis, started by the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
Even though the beginning of the crises was in America, it created a domino effect that reached
countries worldwide, including Turkey. As we can see in the graph below, both the exports and
imports of Turkey were greatly impacted. Imports decreased 55.9% from $20.56 billion to $9.07
billion and exports decreased 42.6% from $12.79 billion to $7.35 billion over eight-month
periods. Much of the crash was created by a sub-prime, real-estate bubble in America and not
due to domestic policies or actions in Turkey. Ironically, Turkey is now on the road to a real-
estate bubble domestically, that could harm the economy again in the future.
Debt and Deficit:
The gross debt of Turkey has been rising for the past couple of decades and is now at an
all-time high. The graph indicates a pretty convincing trend upward with the exception of the
time period centered on the global financial crisis in 2008. In reality, the decrease in debt was
probably greater than indicated from a Turkish perspective since the Lira appreciated against the
dollar in 2008, and the graph is in US Dollars. The exchange rate at the beginning of 2008 was
0.8547 dollars per lira; at the end of 2008, the exchange rate was 0.6494 dollars per lira.
However, even with the increase in debt, we see their debt to GDP ratio has been
decreasing since 2000 and had made a big drop from a high of 77.9% in 2002 to 39.4% in 2012.
This means their debt is being used wisely since the GDP must be increasing at a faster rate than
the debt level.
Another reason the debt in Turkey continues to rise is due to the consistent deficit
budgets run by the country. The most problematic area in the deficits is the current account
deficit, which is at a percentage of GDP that is unstable for this developing nation. “While the
deficit is down from as high as 10% of Turkey's $780 billion gross domestic product last year,
economists say that a gap of more than 5% is unsustainable...”.ii If Turkey cannot manage to
reign in the deficit spending in its current accounts, even with its growth, it will be difficult to
make the move to becoming developed economy.
In addition, this continuous deficit in the budget of Turkey, leads to higher borrowing
rates for the country. With the higher borrowing rates, it now costs more to run a deficit for the
country.
Credit Rating:
Turkey’s credit rating has recently been updated to a BBB- by Fitch; its first investment
grade rating since the financial crisis in 1994.iii However, ratings agency has claimed it will not
continue to strengthen its credit rating until Turkey begins to control its Current Account deficit.
Again we see the deficits maintained by Turkey as its main hindrance from moving up to a
stronger credit ranking. Once the rating increases, it will become less costly for them to borrow
long-term debt.
S&P - Foreign Currency LT DebtRating Date Rating Date Rating Date
BBB- 11/5/2012 Ba1 6/20/2012 BB 2/19/2010BB+ 12/3/2009 Ba2 1/8/2010 BB- 8/17/2004BB- 10/27/2009 Ba3 12/14/2005 B+ 10/16/2003BB- 1/13/2005 B1 12/21/2000 B 7/28/2003B+ 2/9/2004 B1 7/24/2000 B- 4/27/2001B 9/25/2003 B1 3/21/1997 B- 4/16/2001B- 3/25/2003 Ba3 1/9/1997 B 2/23/2001B 8/2/2001 Ba3 5/26/1995 B+ 2/21/2001B+ 4/2/2001 B+ 4/25/2000BB- 4/27/2000 B 12/13/1996B+ 12/20/1996 B+ 4/28/1994BB- 9/26/1995B 8/10/1994
Fitch - FC Curr Issuer Rating Moody's - FC Curr Issuer Rating
iv
Unfortunately for Turkey, the other two, widely used, credit rating agencies still rate
Turkey’s sovereign debt below investment grade. Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s have a
conservative outlook toward credit ratings in Turkey and the rise has been more gradual. Since
2003 the credit ratings for Turkey’s sovereign debt have only become better and better. They
have had no ratings decreases during that period. This could lead to Moody’s and Standard and
Poor’s upgrading their ratings in the near future.
Knowing the trend behind Turkey’s credit ratings allows us to view the country’s debt as
more of an investment, even though it has not yet reached those ratings on all of the scales. This
trend allows for further investment into the country, as it becomes a safer investment tool. More
investment should lead to additional growth for the country.
Asset Bubbles:
Previously, there have been a couple of detrimental asset bubbles to the Turkish
economy. One was recent, when the country fell victim to the real-estate bubble in 2008. Even
though there was no bubble domestically there was a global downturn in price of real estate. This
set off a chain reaction that led to a fall in imports and exports in Turkey.
Asset bubbles on the horizon, are something Turkey needs to be aware of moving
forward. One such bubble could be a result of unsustainable capital inflows. As Erdem Basci,
central bank deputy governor, said in 2010, “strong capital inflows, fuelled by quantitative
easing in developed economies, could create asset bubbles in emerging economies. The best
response would be to cut interest rates gradually, while using other tools to restrain domestic
banks’ loan growth, he argued.”v Thus far, this has not happened. Developed economies have
participated in quantitative easing multiple times since the 2008 financial crisis. Mr. Basci is
concerned all of the monetary easing taking place will create stronger capital inflows for
developing economies, such as Turkey. This means, the investments made in the emerging
economies will drive up the prices of assets in those economies. Therefore, Turkey must
counteract these policies by cutting interest rates domestically and restraining growth spurred by
banks loans.
On top of that, Turkey could also be facing a real-estate bubble in the domestic market.
Lately, home prices across Turkey have been rising at a substantial rate. “In fact, it was recently
revealed in the Turkey Real Estate Investment Outlook 2012 report from Castle Research, units
that had a going rate of $1,500 USD per sqm [square meters] less than ten years ago have now
reached a high of about $10,000 USD per sqm.”vi These continually rising prices, especially at
such a high rate, could certainly lead to a bubble in the future. However, thus far, the supply of
houses has not been keeping up with the demand, causing prices to rise. This in itself is not
problematic, but when properties are being purchased as investments, it does become a problem.
Investments are traded tools (they are bought and sold). This means, at some point, those who
“invested” in real estate will need to sell their holdings. When a bearish market for investing in
Turkish property begins, we will see the bubble pop.
Fiscal Policy:
Fiscal Policy is the use of government revenue collection (taxation) and expenditure
(spending) to influence the economy.vii Turkey is a growing economy. It has made significant
progress over the last two decades regarding fiscal consolidation and a strong reform of fiscal
policy. Turkey has come a long way from being a fragile country of the 90s to become a
successful transition model.viii
Turkey was not as affected by the last global economic crisis as some other countries.
The public finance suffered lower losses. The Turkish government announced a Medium-Term
Program in Oct 2010, covering 2011 to 2013. The program essentially spoke about the how the
general government deficit can be reduced as a part of GDP by 2013. Some of the predictions
made in this were a growth of 7% in the GDP (6.8% cautiously speaking). Looking at the factual
evidence, the Nominal Interest rates have been declining on the government’s borrowing
(currently at 8%). That’s the reason why the Turkey is on the verge of being upgraded to
Investment Grade Credit Rating, by multiple agencies, as discussed earlier.
These achievements have been made possible due to the fiscal policies formulated and
updated by the government over the years. The two time periods making this happen were the
1990s and the 2000s where Turkey went through three big recessions followed by the strong
fiscal transformations. First Fiscal Law towards Turkey’s ever strengthening economy was
submitted to the parliament in the first half of 2010.
Fiscal Stance of 1990s:
Deficit Financing is seen as a way to create funds for a country. It is when a government
spends more money than it receives revenue, and the difference is made up for either by
borrowing money or minting money.ix Since Turkey has limited domestic savings it extensively
depends on external financing. The advantage of meeting social and physical infrastructural
expenses is lost on the higher interest rates on the borrowed money. The economy becomes weak
since the current account balance gets severely disturbed.
As it can be seen from the above table the public sector balance was under a serious
deficit from 1990, over to 1999 where it ended at 11.7% of the GDP. The primary reason behind
this was the excessive deficit financing Turkey applied. As a consequence of this, the public
sector interest payments grew significantly, from 3.8% of GDP in 1990 to 11.5% of GDP in
1999 and the Nominal Interest Rates more than doubled (53.0% to 109.6%). Since the country
wasn’t making sufficient revenue, the debt kept on increasing every year, and the higher interest
rates made it difficult to repay the debt, this led to a deadlock in the Turkish economy.
Some of the salient features of the fiscal policy in the 1990s, which resulted in a difficult phase
for Turkey, were:
Limited scope of the budget was submitted to the parliament, excluding a good portion of
government expenses.
Improper classification of the budget which wasn’t as per the international standards.
Public Procurement System was inefficient
Monitoring and Reporting of debts and public accounts wasn’t appropriate.
Complex Tax Exemptions and exceptions had resulted in considerable loss of the
country.
Multi-year budgeting technique was followed under which Turkey did not give any
regard to the consequences implemented actions on the subsequent years.
Negligence of Strategic Decision making for the public agencies, development plans etc.
led to incorrect assessment of the expenses.
In short, the fiscal policies of the 1990s had serious flaws leading to the severe crisis situations in
Turkey.
Fiscal Stance of 2000s:
After the horrors of the 1990s, it became important to reform the fiscal policies which can
bring the economy of Turkey to a better position. Turkey finalized the 17th stand-by arrangement
with the IMF (International Monetary Fund) with an aim of attaining price stability, self-
sustained banking system (within Turkey) and tightened fiscal policy. The intention of the fiscal
policy here was to increase the savings pool for private sector investments, which had
deteriorated in the 1990s. The unfortunate environmental disaster, in Dec 1999, shook up the
economy quite badly leading to the 4th crisis in the country in a little over 10 years. The
bankruptcy of several banks led to an extraordinary liquidity shortage in the country and hence a
record high interest rate on borrowing (200%).
Starting 1999 Turkey imposed a new set of taxes to overcome the situation. Turkey saw a
positive light of hope in the 2000-2001 in public sector primary balance in terms of surplus ratio
of GDP. Fiscal consolidation proved to be a very significant undertaking by Turkey for
economic growth. The future stand-by arrangements with IMF (18th and 19th) were as profitable
for the country as the 17th. Turkey was able to decrease its debt stock quite rapidly over the
period of next 9 years from 77.6% in 2001 to 39.5% in 2008 (as a ratio of GDP).
As it can be seen in the above table, with an exception of 2001, the interest rates and the
public sector balance have been steadily improving. The nominal interest rates have been falling
as well.
The Fiscal Rule Law draft consists of 12 articles which speaks about the fiscal laws of the
country and assigns responsibilities clarifies operation of the rules and defines rules for
monitoring and reporting the principles of the rule. The government deficit rule was the
backbone of this draft. The rule spoke about combining the program and the fiscal plan in one
document to make multi-year budgets more effective. The general government data was to be
published quarterly to ensure healthy monitor and evaluation of the fiscal rule. Turkish Court of
Accounts was given an auditor to ensure the accounts conform to global standards.
Fiscal Consolidation brought about a lot of positive changes in the Turkish economy in
the 2000s. The country is still developing and the growth rate has been significant over the past
few years.
Monetary Policy:
Monetary Policy is the actions of a central bank, currency board or other regulatory
committee that determine the size and rate of growth of the money supply, which in turn affects
interest rates. Monetary policy is maintained through actions such as increasing the interest rate,
or changing the amount of money banks need to keep in the vault (bank reserves).x
During the global financial crisis, the central banks of various advanced economies
implemented certain monetary easing policies for Turkey, which led to availability of sufficient,
low-cost and short term external financing. This led to rapid credit growth and gradual rise of the
Turkish Lira. Central Bank of Turkey (TCMB) has put in line a new strategy towards reducing
the macro-financial risks. During the period of adoption of new policies around November 2010
to August 2011 (when the European economy was going down) the TCMB had a tough time to
balance between the short term capital flows and preventing excessive appreciation of the
Turkish Lira on one hand and ensuring a more controlled growth in domestic credit and demand
as well as balancing the demands, externally and internally on the other. Since the European
economy was fluctuating significantly during that period, TCMB had to ensure similar problems
didn’t occur in the country. So they limited the number of short term capital flows and used the
money to strengthen the TCMB reserves.xi
http://www.tcmb.gov.tr/yeni/announce/2012/Mon_Exc_Pol_2012.pdf
As it can be seen from above, the Turkish Lira was appreciating quite rapidly and to
avoid the volatile exchange rate movement as in the other emerging economies, control over the
inflow of money was implemented by the TCMB. The Interest rate corridor policy was the tool
used by TCMB actively and will used in future as long as the economy remains volatile.
Historical and Political Factors Affecting the Turkish Economy:
The Turkish economy has fluctuated considerably in the past. As discussed earlier in the
article the economy fell due to the three major financial crises in the 1990s and one in early
2000s. The Persian Gulf War in the 1991 led to imposition of embargo on Iraq by UN, which led
to loss of business with Iraq. The loss was compensated by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and UAE, by
1992 the economy started to grow again. In 1994, the second crisis hit Turkey when the
government’s move of large salary increase to civil servants and increased transfers to state
enterprises raised the public sector borrowing. Turkey used the high performance feedback of
Wall Street in the 80s to attract external funds which was got translated lower domestic interest
rates and private sector borrowing. This was an unexpected outcome and resulted in higher short-
term debt. The economic crisis rose due to lack of confidence in the government for the balance
payments. There were disputes which rose between Prime Minister Tansu Çiller and TCMB due
to the difference in ideas. The differences lead to downgrading of the Credit rating of the country
and resignation of TCMB governor. The dollarization of the economy, during the mid-1990s, by
the residents (people hold a foreign currency deposit, US$) weakened the economy further.
Government had to release the foreign currency reserves to avoid the declining Turkish Lira.xii
Trade Barriers:xiii
Trade Barriers are the impositions which are put forth by the government to restrict trade
with other nations. They are responsible for the reduction in the economic efficiency of a
country. xiv Trade Barriers include various forms discussed as follows:
Tariffs:
Tariff is generally defined as the tax imposed on the export or import in and out of a
country. Turkey use the European Union’s (EU) common external custom tariff to third country
nonagricultural imports (including from the United States) and does not impose duties on
nonagricultural items from EU and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries. A high
tariff rate is maintained for the food and agricultural products.
Import Licenses:
These are required essentially for the after sales servicing of products, agricultural
products and distilled spirits. U.S. firms have reported difficulties in the receiving the import
license due to the lack of transparency in the license policy, esp during the harvest season of
Turkey when the products tend to compete with the local market. The Turkish government has
taken steps in this direction to improve the tax structure. Certain policies have been made more
liberal for the spirits and tobacco market of Turkey.
Government Procurement:
Under the Public Tender Law, foreign companies can participate in the state tenders
valued above a certain limit, with a preference of up to 15% to domestic bidders (unless they
form a joint venture, where the preference is lost).
Export Subsidies:
To promote the export of products, Turkey has employed several export incentives. The
figure ranges from 5 to 20 % of the export value. Since the country doesn’t have many resources
to export, generally agricultural products receive maximum subsidies in this respect. The EU
directives and WTO commitments keep them under check.
Service Barriers:
Telecom Services – The Electronic Communications Law No. 5809 was brought into
effect in 2008 to clarify the role and responsibility of the Turkey’s Regulator along the lines of
EU’s framework. Suitable bans on the internet content were a part of the law as well.
Other Service Barriers – Citizenship of the country is required to be a certified accountant
or represent courts. Approval for foreign doctors operating in Turkey is under processing.
Investment Barriers:
Turkey is quite liberal in terms of private firms developing projects in energy markets
subject to approval from Energy Market Regulatory Authority. The process for foreign
employers to obtain a Turkish work permit has always been criticized. It has been described as
time-consuming, involves extensive documentation, adjudication process is lengthy and approval
chances are low. Real Estate ownership has been a controversial issue in Turkey for a long time.
‘No foreign individual may own more than 2.5 acres, and all foreign individuals together can
own no more than 10 percent of the land in any given development zone.’ It is tough to
determine the land acquisition by any foreigner and hence an obstacle for new ventures. But, the
law is quite relaxed if the company has a legal presence in the country and the land is used for
business activities only.
Other Barriers:
Corruption has been noted as one of the very prominent barrier in Turkey. This has been
perceived as a problem for many foreign investors. The taxes on motor vehicles is not fixed;
based on the engine size it varies from 37% to 130% for vehicles imported from US.
Corporate Governance:
Turkey’s Corporate Governance policies have been improving and the transparency of
the country has improved significantly. Barring certain aspects like protection of minority
shareholders, controlling shareholders, Turkey has shown positive outlook as per OECD.
Pharmaceuticals:
The pharmaceutical industry is suffering the same way Real Estate is. The complex and
stringent policies is making it tough for the US firms to launch new products in Turkey. On top
of that, asking for a significant discount in prices, on the grounds of budget shortfall, has been
demotivating the companies to invest in Turkey.
International Investment Position:
International Investment Position (IIP) gives the financial claims, reserve assets and
financial liabilities of the Turkish Residents from non-residents.
http://www.tcmb.gov.tr/yeni/eng/
The net IIP is defined as the difference between the external assets and the liabilities. It
can be seen from the graph that the liabilities were raising drastically in the early 2000s. This is
because of the extensive short-term debt which had been flowing into the country. This money
was used to invest into the growth of the assets and hence the corresponding rise in the asset can
be observed. The liabilities had a sharp fall during the 2008 recession and then the rise has been
very gradual. The gradual rise is understandable due to the conservative monetary policies which
were implemented by the TCMB. This is why we can observe a gradual rise in the assets after
the 2007 period.
Turkey’s Future:
For the next year or two, we predict the economy of Turkey will continue its expansion
of the recent past. We have seen data of an increasing Real GDP over the past couple of years
and do not foresee that trend ceasing. Reasons for the recent increases in Aggregate Supply
include a stronger job market by both a higher labor force participation rate and a lower
unemployment rate. These two indicators will shift the Long-Run Average Supply Curve to the
right. The Aggregate Demand curve will also shift to the right with a combination of lower
interest rates to encourage more buying, a steady exchange rate, rising consumption levels, and
an increase in imports. These two curve shifts will create a new equilibrium resulting in a higher
Real GDP. Prices could be higher, lower, or the same depending on the size of the shifts in the
curves.
Either way, with an increasing rate of full employment and a higher Real GDP, the
Turkish economy should continue to grow stronger. With this continued growth, we expect
Turkey to eventually warrant consideration for being a developed economy.
YF’YF
LRAS’LRAS
AD’AD
Real GDP
P
Endnotes:
i Alper, C. Emre. “The Turkish Liquidity Crisis of 2000: What Went Wrong.” Russian and East
European Finance and Trade 37.6 (2001): 58–80. Print.
ii Candemir, Yeliz, and Emre Peker. “Turkey Reins in Current-Account Deficit.” Wall Street Journal
11 Oct. 2012. Web. 11 Dec. 2012.
iii Peker, Emre. “Turkey Exits Junk Status.” Wall Street Journal 6 Nov. 2012. Web. 11 Dec. 2012
iv Bloomberg L.P. "Table of Historical Credit Ratings for Turkey" (2012). Bloomberg database.
Bentley University Trading Room, Waltham, MA. 12, December 2012.
v Istanbul, Delphine Strauss in, and Stefan Wagstyl in London. “Capital Inflows to Turkey Spur Rate
Cut Plan.” Financial Times 13 Dec. 2010. Web. 12 Dec. 2012.
vi http://www.antalyahomes.com/residential-real-estate-prices-in-turkey-continue-to-rise. Accessed on
12 Dec. 2012.
vii O' Sullivan, Arthur; Steven M. Sheffrin (2003). Economics: Principles in action. Upper Saddle
River, New Jersey 07458: Pearson Prentice Hall. pp. 387. ISBN 0-13-063085-3.
viii Kaya, F., & Yılar, S. (2011). Fiscal Transformation in Turkey over the Last Two Decades.
ix “Deficit Financing (economics) -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia.” Encyclopedia Britannica.
Web. 14 Dec. 2012.
x “Monetary Policy Definition | Investopedia.” Investopedia. Web. 14 Dec. 2012.
xi http://www.tcmb.gov.tr/yeni/announce/2012/Mon_Exc_Pol_2012.pdf. Accessed on 12 Dec. 2012.
xii http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/trtoc.html. Accessed on 12 Dec. 2012.
xiii http://www.ustr.gov/sites/default/files/Turkey.pdf . Accessed on 12 Dec. 2012.
xiv http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/trade-barrier.html. Accessed on 12 Dec. 2012.