One global economy, two visions
Feride İnan
29 January 2018
The World Economic Forum's 48th annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, kicked off with copious measures of optimism and caution. On one side, IMF upped its global growth projections for 2018 and 2019 right before the meetings began. Also prior to Davos was an announcement by Apple, the most valuable company in the world, that it would contribute $350 billion to the US economy, creating 20,000 new jobs in the next five years. Both these developments set a tone of optimism for the meetings. At Davos, CEOs cheered and clapped the US tax reform, companies declared their goodwill and vowed to increase workers’ wages among other concessions, envisioning an ever-stronger American economy that would strengthen global growth along with it.On the other end, IMF director Christine Lagarde appeared cir
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Is Turkey going back to square one after 40 years?
Güven Sak, PhD
20 January 2018
Turkey has transformed itself from a sleepy agrarian society to a dynamic industrial country. Much of it is thanks to Özal’s reforms that started the transformation process in the 1980s. Then the Customs Union with the EU in 1996 turned Turkey into a mid-tech industrial country. The economic transformation of Turkey has so far been a success story in terms of improving the global competitiveness of the country. Not anymore. As of 2016, Turkey’s competitiveness has declined to lower than global average. Why? Let me elaborate.
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The year 2007 was a perfect storm for Turkey
Güven Sak, PhD
13 January 2018
“Countries don’t disappear, it has been said, but sometimes they do encounter perfect storms.” wrote Jorge Castaneda, a Mexican politician and academic, the other day in the NYT, “these do not threaten their existence, yet they can represent major challenges to their welfare and integrity.”2007 was such a year for Turkey. Let me explain why this is important today.
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A tale of three countries: Turkey, China and Iran
Güven Sak, PhD
06 January 2018
I was in Tehran right after President Rouhani was first elected. The hotel rooms were fully booked, with businesspeople and journalists from across the world. The story was that Iran was deciding to return to our world from the parallel universe the country has exiled itself to around 40 years ago. There is now discontent on Iranian streets. I see this as frustration with the pace of the reform process.
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