TEPAV Readership during the COVID-19 crisis Web traffic on our website examined during the period of March 10th to May 12th, 2020.

TEPAV began its activities in 2004 in order to perform data-driven policy analysis and to directly contribute to the policy design process. For the past 16 years, TEPAV has worked to enrich  data content of intellectual discussions and offer a technical framework for these discussions in the field of economic policy and other research agendas that cross with economic policies horizontally in Turkey. In this context, as of early 2020, TEPAV continues to vigorously investigate the economic effects of the current COVID-19 global pandemic on the Turkish economy. As TEPAV’s connections with academia and the business world offer a unique angle in tracking the effects that have taken place and are likely to happen, our insights are shared with the public on our website.

In the period beginning with the first COVID-19 case in Turkey on March 10^th to May 12^th, 2020, for evaluating the economic impacts of COVID-19 and initiating policy discussions, almost 90 evaluation notes, policy notes, bulletins and blog posts were shared with the public on www.tepav.org.tr. According to Google Analytics, the number of views on www.tepav.org.tr increased by 59 percent and the number of users increased by 64 percent compared to the same period last year.

In Figure 1 and Figure 2, the number of views and users of the webpage were given with comparisons for the March 10 - May 12, 2020 and the corresponding period in 2019. The highest increase in website traffic was on April 20^th after publishing the TEPAV evaluation note of Dr. Türkmen Göksel and Dr. Yetkin Çınar, titled “Forecasts for the COVID-19 Peak Point and Gradual Transition of the Normalization Period in Turkey.” Together with the aforementioned piece, the May 4^th blog post by N. Murat Ersavcı titled “Our Struggle with the COVID-19,” and the April 24^th policy note titled “What Can We Do to Manage the Economic Consequences of COVID-19?” written by Fatih Özatay and Güven Sak, contributed to the top three articles that brought in the most internet traffic. In addition to these observations, we can say that there has been a considerable rise in traffic on www.tepav.org.tr compared to the last year, especially after April.

Figure 1 - Number of views on TEPAV website compared to last year for the same period, March 10 - May 12 in 2019 and 2020

Source: Google Analytics, TEPAV visualizations

Figure 2 - Number of users on TEPAV website compared to last year for the same period, March 10 - May 12 in 2019 and 2020

Source: Google Analytics, TEPAV visualizations

For the time period of March 10^th to May 12^th, the most number of visitors to www.tepav.org.tr by country were, in descending order, Turkey, USA, France, and Germany, out of 133 countries. The top 10 cities where individuals virtually visited TEPAV were from; Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Adana, Paris, Bursa, Antalya, Chicago, Konya, and Diyarbakir.

Furthermore, for this period, around 46 percent of TEPAV visitors were women and 54 percent were men. When distributing the visitors by age, those between 24-34 years of age came in first place with a 32 percent share. They are followed by the age groups 18-24 with 24 percent and 35-44 with 21 percent.

These statistics depict the overall increasing demand for more information and analysis on COVID-19. As a think tank, we continue to try to quench this demand by evaluating the available and accessible data. The increased visits to our website from diverse segments of society is an important and positive feedback for us on this effort.

Figure 3 - Distribution of TEPAV website users by gender and age, %, March 10 – May 12, 2020

Source: Google Analytics, TEPAV visualizations