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Political polarization is bad for the economy
I believe that political polarization has been blocking our way and reducing our luck. The US has the same problem. Politicians love political polarization. They can’t…
Reform fatigue in Turkey
I was at the Prague Enlargement Dialogue meeting last week, where I was asked whether the prolonged accession process had led to reform fatigue in Turkey. Now, our…
Why did ASEAN not win the Nobel Peace Prize?
At the outset of beating the odds lies the courage to confront history. The EU has been courageous enough, ASEAN has not. The European Union (EU) won the 2012 Nobel…
Prospects for federalism in Syria and for Kurds
The political situation in Syria is changing. Bashar al-Assad’s army maintains operational capacity, but it has lost most of northern Syria. There are two reasons for…
Turkey achieved half of the EU’s GDP per capita before 2020
The number of SMEs operating in Turkey with EU capital has increased from 4,000 in 2003 to 15,000. Turkey’s per capita GDP has reached 50% of the EU-27 average. Please…
The next big debate in Turkey
Turkey’s economy and public life today is deprived of the skills and creativity of half of its population. Turkish women do not get jobs. Turkey is the only OECD country…
You should not rent a car in India
Turkey is a country where you can rent a car; India is not. But there are interesting similarities between the two countries. There are two types of countries in the…
Syria and Turkey’s exit strategy
The best exit strategy for Turkey is to hope for the creation of a negotiation table in Syria. In Syria, as the number of dead and refugees increases, endless political…
The cost of the Central Bank’s new policy (2)
The share of FX liabilities in the Central Bank’s total debt rose from 44 to 67 percent. On Tuesday, I addressed the positive aspects of the Central Bank’s (CB) new…
The cost of the Central Bank’s new policy (1)
Banks are now allowed to keep a certain proportion of required reserves for lira deposits in FX. Quite a while ago the Central Bank (CB) introduced a new monetary policy…
Turkey has to put on the brakes because of its disorganized urban transformation
In Turkey, as spending on housing contributes more to the GDP, the domestic savings rate decreases. Turkey is not like China. When it achieves high growth rates like…
Has the income gap narrowed down?
Since 1960, GDP per capita gap between G7 countries and Turkey has not changed much. As you might remember, in one of last week’s commentaries, I criticized a figure…