Turkey

From Mises Wiki, the global repository of classical-liberal thought
Jump to: navigation, search
Country summary

Capital

Ankara

Borders

Armenia 268 km, Azerbaijan 9 km, Bulgaria 240 km, Georgia 252 km, Greece 206 km, Iran 499 km, Iraq 352 km, Syria 822 km

Government type

republican parliamentary democracy

Population

76,805,524 (July 2010 est.)[1]

Population growth

1.312% (2010 est.)[1]

Life expectancy

71.96 years[1]

Unemployment

14.1% (2009 est.)[1]

Index of Economic Freedom

67[2]

Corruption Perceptions Index

61[3]

Doing Business ranking

73[4]


Modern Turkey was founded in 1923 from the Anatolian remnants of the defeated Ottoman Empire by national hero Mustafa KEMAL, who was later honored with the title Ataturk or "Father of the Turks." Under his authoritarian leadership, the country adopted wide-ranging social, legal, and political reforms. After a period of one-party rule, an experiment with multi-party politics led to the 1950 election victory of the opposition Democratic Party and the peaceful transfer of power. Since then, Turkish political parties have multiplied, but democracy has been fractured by periods of instability and intermittent military coups (1960, 1971, 1980), which in each case eventually resulted in a return of political power to civilians. In 1997, the military again helped engineer the ouster - popularly dubbed a "post-modern coup" - of the then Islamic-oriented government. Turkey intervened militarily on Cyprus in 1974 to prevent a Greek takeover of the island and has since acted as patron state to the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus," which only Turkey recognizes. A separatist insurgency begun in 1984 by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) - now known as the People's Congress of Kurdistan or Kongra-Gel (KGK) - has dominated the Turkish military's attention and claimed more than 30,000 lives. After the capture of the group's leader in 1999, the insurgents largely withdrew from Turkey mainly to northern Iraq. In 2004, KGK announced an end to its ceasefire and attacks attributed to the KGK increased. Turkey joined the UN in 1945 and in 1952 it became a member of NATO; it holds a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council during 2009-10. In 1964, Turkey became an associate member of the European Community. Over the past decade, it has undertaken many reforms to strengthen its democracy and economy; it began accession membership talks with the European Union in 2005.[1]

Economical characteristics

  • Currency: Turkish lira (ISO code: TRY)
  • Central bank discount rate: 15% (22 December 2009)[1]
  • Commercial banks lending rate: NA%[1]
  • Stock of money (M1): $37.1 billion (31 December 2009)[1]
  • Quasi money (with M1 makes M2): $313.5 billion (31 December 2009)[1]

Notable events:

  • Banking crisis: July 1931, 1982-1985, January 1991, April 1994, 2000[5]
  • Years in inflation: 35.6% (share of years 1923-2009 with annual inflation above 20 per cent per annum)
  • Public default: 1876-1881, 1915-1928, 1931-1932, 1940-1943, 1959, 1965, 1978-1979, 1982, 2000-2001 (external)[6]

Statistics

Statistic / Year 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
GDP (million USD)[7] 248 961 267 209 196 036 232 745 304 594 393 038 483 992 529 932 647 846 734 853
Govt. debt (% of GDP)[8] 51.500 44.352 44.509
Govt. revenue (% of GDP)[9] 24.997 25.837 22.559
Govt. expenses (% of GDP)[10] 22.151 24.546 22.827
Debt to revenue (years) 2.060 1.717 1.973

References

Note: statistical data was rounded. Different sources may use different methodologies for their estimates. Debt to revenue is calculated by dividing the two variables from their original ('unrounded') values. It represents how long it would a government take to repay its entire debt if it used its whole revenue for this purpose.

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 CIA - The World Factbook. "Turkey", from The World Factbook. Referenced 2010-09-30.
  2. Heritage Foundation. "Turkey", Economic Freedom Score. A lower ranking is better; but please be careful when comparing between different countries or years. Referenced 2010-09-30.
  3. Transparency International. "Turkey", Corruption Perceptions Index 2009. A lower ranking is better; but please note that the numbers cannot be compared between countries or years due to different methodology. Referenced 2010-09-30.
  4. Doing Business. "Turkey", Doing Business 2010 (part of The World Bank Group). A lower ranking is better; but please be careful when comparing between different countries or years. Referenced 2010-09-30.
  5. Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff. "This Time is Different", Princeton University Press, ISBN 978-0-691-14216-6, p. 386. (The list does not claim to be complete.) Referenced 2011-07-21.
  6. Carmen M. Reinhart. "This Time is Different Chartbook: Country Histories on Debt, Default, and Financial Crises" (pdf), March 3, 2010, p. 112. (The list does not claim to be complete.) Referenced 2011-07-21.
  7. World Bank. "Turkey: GDP", from World Bank Data. Referenced 2010-09-30.
  8. World Bank. "Turkey: government debt", from World Bank Data. Referenced 2010-09-30.
  9. World Bank. "Turkey: government revenue", from World Bank Data. Referenced 2010-09-30.
  10. World Bank. "Turkey: government expenses", from World Bank Data. Referenced 2010-09-30.

Links