What is that banks have been putting us though?
Fatih Özatay, PhD
21 May 2009
Do you remember the 1994 crisis that Turkey skillfully created though no other part of the world economy was in crisis? The obsession before the emergence of the crisis was about the high rate of Treasury borrowing rate. And the accused was banks that 'sold money' to the Treasury. Indeed, over the last quarter of 1993 borrowing rates floated within the 80-92 percent interval and were high above the inflation rate of 66 percent.
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Is the optimism grounded?
Fatih Özatay, PhD
18 May 2009
The number of positive opinions on both the global crisis and the Turkish economy has recently been increasing. A couple of commentaries that can be considered positively have also been published on this column. Of course it is nice to be optimistic, however, that optimism must be grounded.
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Decreasing automobile prices, rising unemployment
Fatih Özatay, PhD
17 May 2009
Not only I but also other economists have been discussing since the last autumn on the facilitation of the conditions for benefiting from the unemployment aid, extension of the duration of the aid, revision of unemployment aid amount and concentration on skill development trainings geared to unemployed, in particular to unskilled ones.
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Impacts of tax rate cut
Fatih Özatay, PhD
14 May 2009
Private consumption tax imposed on motor vehicles was cut as per a decision made on March 16. According to the March bulletin of Automotive Industrialists Foundation, decrease in the prices of automobiles and light trucks engine volume below 1600 cc as a result of this decision that will be in effect for three months is around 14 percent. The decision enables 1 to 6 % price reduction for the rest of vehicle types.
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On the possibility that we hit the trough
Fatih Özatay, PhD
11 May 2009
Today I would like to continue with favorable developments. It is still necessary to make a pick-up-with-tweezers operation; but it is okay; I take this trouble to find a single favorable indicator. Today's picking up operation focuses on indicators from abroad.
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Favorable indicators
Fatih Özatay, PhD
10 May 2009
Today is Mother's Day; we would rather touch upon some favorable indicators after all of those pessimistic commentaries. Let us see what favorable development I can find. At least I know what to not do: I will not deal with data on the past. Yes, industrial production has felt down and so on, but there is no news here; everyone expected and knew that it would happen.
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Behavioral differences among banks
Fatih Özatay, PhD
07 May 2009
As stated before, global crisis affected Turkish economy through four different channels. One of these channels showed impact in form of tightening of credits extended by domestic banks. Today, I would like to address credit extending behaviors for different bank groups.
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It is easy for China; but what about Turkey?
Fatih Özatay, PhD
04 May 2009
Global crisis revealed that most of developing countries must review their growth models. Take for instance the economies highly export-driven. If a crisis is not only global but also shows its impacts over a long time period, export-driven countries are deeply affected. When they become unable to export, they experience high decreases in growth rate.
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We will be affected more in the medium term
Fatih Özatay, PhD
03 May 2009
If you take a look at the online commentaries on the global crisis, two points grab your attention. First refers to the opinions emphasizing that first signs of recovery in real sector might be on the way. If you noticed, I used an ambiguous expression; 'might be on the way' but the commentaries also reflect such expressions.
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Export performance problems might continue in 2010
Fatih Özatay, PhD
30 April 2009
This is the last day of April. In other words, one-thirds of the year has passed. Yet, no worthwhile economic program to limit the contractionary impact of the global crisis on the Turkish economy has been announced. As you might remember, if all measures presented in the crisis report prepared by TEPAV were implemented in March, growth rate was improved by 1.9 points: rate of contraction estimated as 5.5 percent was limited at 3.6 percent.
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