The 1994 economic crisis in Turkey

Abstract

The Turkish economy remained an inward-oriented closed economy until the government launched an economic reform and stabilization program on January 24, 1980, to liberalize the Turkish economy. The stabilization program had a favorable impact on the Turkish economy, transforming it into an export-oriented, private-sector-driven economy. As the economy flourished, however, increasing political competition forced the government to compromise the stabilization program and pursue fiscally damaging populist economic policies, which resulted in an economic crisis in the beginning of 1994. The government responded to the economic crisis by launching an IMF backed economic stabilization program on April 5, 1994. As the economy recovered and economic stability improved, the government delayed continued implementation of the structural measures of the April 5th stabilization program, which resulted in the further deterioration of the Turkish economy. The worsening fiscal situation eventually culminated in another major economic crisis in 2001. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the causes of the 1994 Turkish economic crisis and the role of the government's economic policies in the emergence of the crisis. In addition, this thesis tries to demonstrate correlation between the economic crises of 1994 and 2001.