Selva Demiralp is a professor of Economics at Koç University, Istanbul.
selvademiralp.com
The March 31 local elections in Türkiye marked the most severe defeat for the incumbent AKP in its 20-year reign. This voter backlash was a belated response to a decade of policy missteps that severely disrupted economic stability, especially after September 2021. In the run-up to the general elections in May 2023, the government opened
A sovereign credit rating is an evaluation of a country’s creditworthiness. They can be provided at the request of a country to assess its economic and political environment. Receiving a good rating allows the countries to access funds in international markets more easily. The rating agencies’ decisions are based on subjective evaluations and can be
As the pandemic hits with the third wave, the scientists exploit the year-long data to dig deeper into the pandemic and learn its dynamics. While Turkey displayed a relatively succesful performance at the early stages of the pandemic, it is one of the countries with the largest number of daily infections at the moment. Daily
As the former Fed chair Ben Bernanke once put it, “Monetary policy is 98 percent talk and only 2 percent action.” What Bernanke highlights with that quote is the capability of a credible central banker in steering the markets in the desired direction, by communicating the central bank’s end goals with the markets. How does
The Economic Reform Package was announced by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on March 12. As an economist who specializes in monetary policy, I found the following statement rather struggling: “We will put the frequently mentioned price stability aside.” This remark can have opposite interpretations: 1) Frequent emphasis on price stability increased our awareness on the
Turkey registered a 1.8 percent growth rate for 2020 and became one of the few countries that achieved positive growth during the pandemic. The growth performance was primarily a consequence of the excessive credit growth and low interest rate policies adopted during 2020. Yet, the consequent pressures on the TL and the sale of central
From the perspective of a monetary economist, inflation is always the first item that should be addressed on the way to sustainable growth. Hence my unduly emphasis on price stability. Despite all the tragedy and loss, perhaps one of the few gains in 2020 was to bring the abstract notion of price stability down to
Central Bank Gov. Uysal’s replacement combined with Finance Minister Albayrak’s resignation might signal the end of an era in monetary policy that relied on an unorthodox policy mix with low interest rates and foreign exchange reserve sales. We are still trying to sort out what to expect from the second week of November after a