{"id":2559,"date":"2018-08-13T07:55:54","date_gmt":"2018-08-13T06:55:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?p=2559"},"modified":"2018-08-15T08:08:16","modified_gmt":"2018-08-15T07:08:16","slug":"turkeys-enormous-problems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?p=2559","title":{"rendered":"Turkey\u2019s enormous problems"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From my previous professional life as a bank chief economist I remember very well the Turkish banking crisis of 2000\/2001, followed by a major economic downturn (GDP 2001: -5.3%). Prior to the banking crisis, macroeconomic imbalances in mainly the budget and the current account had worsened alarmingly and, thus, strongly contributed to fading international confidence in Turkey\u2019s financial \u2013 and also political \u2013 system. The lira weakened strongly at the time. Foreign investors sold huge amounts of their Turkish T-bills and even stocks. Logically, the currency reserves shrank dramatically. At the end of the day, the IMF provided Turkey with a 10.5 billion financial rescue package. After this, a serious political crisis followed all the same &#8211; before an economic recovery could be noted and the weak banking system was reformed into a more stable shape.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, the acute starting position of the current Turkish crisis does not look very different from the one 17 years ago. Major macroeconomic fiscal and trade imbalances exist also today. The Turkish currency has dropped substantially not only in recent days but also by around 35 percent so far in 2018.<\/p>\n<p>Political conditions, however, look partly different this time &#8211; with other kinds of political leadership in both Turkey and the U.S., giving the current economic problems in Turkey even stronger political dimensions than in the beginning of this century. But this does not necessarily mean that the current Turkish crisis \u201cautomatically\u201d will end in a more benign way, particularly when considering president Trump\u2019s current resistance to potentially needed major international global financial rescue actions.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Worst case scenario<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Still, the worst case scenario is only a scenario. But the current situation is critical and can aggravate further. The worst case scenario could include major bank problems in Turkey with contagion to EU banks that have major loan and securities involvement in the Turkish financial system. Such a development could lead to major GDP losses in mainly Turkey but also to a more limited extent in the EU. Read, by the way, more about this relationship in the research of Hyman Minsky!<\/p>\n<p>All this leads to the conclusion that the coming development in Turkey should be given very strong analytical attention. President Trump\u2019s future ideas and action play certainly an important role in this respect. Sometimes, he changes his mind unexpectedly in another direction. But Turkey itself should also under all circumstances work more ambitiously with its ongoing macroeconomic imbalances, particularly since the country is highly indebted abroad \u2013 both what concerns private and public debt.<\/p>\n<p>Experience from other countries with similar challenges shows that nervous or speculating financial markets usually are stronger than the defense lines set up by the pressured country with its currency reserves \u2013 unless the acute problems are combatted promptly or surprisingly positive news make the whole picture brighter.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/image.lnu.se\/image.ashx?id=117818&amp;w=110\" alt=\"\" width=\"110\" height=\"136\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Hubert Fromlet<\/em><\/strong><em><br \/>\n<\/em>Affiliate Professor at the School of Business and Economics, Linnaeus University<br \/>\n<a href=\"..\/editorial-board\/\">Editorial board<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\">Back to Start Page<\/a><em><br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From my previous professional life as a bank chief economist I remember very well the Turkish banking crisis of 2000\/2001, followed by a major economic downturn (GDP 2001: -5.3%). Prior to the banking crisis, macroeconomic imbalances in mainly the budget and the current account had worsened alarmingly and, thus, strongly contributed to fading international confidence [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":174,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10503,13620,18948],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-emerging-markets","category-previous-articles","category-turkey"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\r\n<title>Turkey\u2019s enormous problems - China Research<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\r\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?p=2559\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Turkey\u2019s enormous problems - China Research\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"From my previous professional life as a bank chief economist I remember very well the Turkish banking crisis of 2000\/2001, followed by a major economic downturn (GDP 2001: -5.3%). Prior to the banking crisis, macroeconomic imbalances in mainly the budget and the current account had worsened alarmingly and, thus, strongly contributed to fading international confidence [&hellip;]\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?p=2559\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"China Research\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-08-13T06:55:54+00:00\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-08-15T07:08:16+00:00\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/image.lnu.se\/image.ashx?id=117818&amp;w=110\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Hubert Fromlet, Kalmar\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Hubert Fromlet, Kalmar\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\r\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?p=2559\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?p=2559\",\"name\":\"Turkey\u2019s enormous problems - China Research\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2018-08-13T06:55:54+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-08-15T07:08:16+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/#\/schema\/person\/7dbc3e79d44dfa0d6bb4e1f625ad2ae5\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?p=2559\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/\",\"name\":\"China Research\",\"description\":\"A discussion forum on emerging markets, mainly China  \u2013                                          from a macro, micro, institutional and corporate angle.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/#\/schema\/person\/7dbc3e79d44dfa0d6bb4e1f625ad2ae5\",\"name\":\"Hubert Fromlet, Kalmar\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?author=174\"}]}<\/script>\r\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Turkey\u2019s enormous problems - China Research","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?p=2559","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Turkey\u2019s enormous problems - China Research","og_description":"From my previous professional life as a bank chief economist I remember very well the Turkish banking crisis of 2000\/2001, followed by a major economic downturn (GDP 2001: -5.3%). 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