Results of the Wordcomplete Contest
I had held a small contest in my Desperate Housewives column from two weeks ago: I asked readers to complete the last sentence of my column and offered a wife-beater! as a prize to my favorite. I was...
View ArticleSeverance pay in Turkey: Chains binding capitalists and proletarians
One of the “best” things about Turkish severance pay is that it literally “binds” employers and employees, although not exactly in solidarity. Here’s the intro. to my latest Hurriyet Daily News (HDN)...
View ArticleEagle-eyed economist eyes Turkey’s Olympic success
Loyal readers will know that economists love to poke their noses into more mundane matters than monetary policy or the current account, whether it be Crimean-Congo Fever or abortion policy. They also...
View ArticleTurkish LIBOR (TRLIBOR) Is Safe!
Here’s guest blogger Ali G. (not the rapper, yeah yeah, I have to make this joke every time) again: Libor – London Interbank Offer Rate- is a set of rates for different currencies and maturities that...
View ArticleWhat’s Driving the Rise in Oil Prices?
The price of Brent Crude, the benchmark based on North Sea oil, fell $ 35 between April and June, but increases since then have taken about $ 25 of that back. According to many, reports that Israel...
View ArticleMore on oil prices
Just a short follow-up to my latest post on oil prices: A commenter advised me to look at the term structure of oil prices. The term structure was really important in the past; it hasn’t been of late,...
View ArticleTurkish Gold Exports (and imports)
Since I just had a post about black gold, I thought I should do one about the non-black one as well:) Back at the end of June, I was one of the first who brought up the huge rise in Turkey’s gold...
View ArticleSurely you’re joking, Mr. Basci!- on Turkish monetary policy
First, of all, it is not Mr. Basci, it is Dr. Basci, as Indiana’s sidekick insisted, but so was Feynman, or maybe not- I think the incident that gave rise to the title of the book happened while he was...
View ArticleAr’Che’typical approach to capital flows (to Turkey)
In one of the hit songs of the musical Evita, Che sings that “when the money keeps flowing, you don’t ask how.” But that’s exactly what I am planning to do. Here’s the intro. to my latest Hurriyet...
View ArticleFood (Prices) for Thought
Farmers from the U.S. to the former U.S.S.R. have suffered from severe drought this summer. As a result, food prices soared 6 percent in July, after three months of decline. Here’s the intro. to my...
View ArticleTurkish Monetary Policy (and Currency Wars, the Fed, Central Banking and...
I know, I know… Not the most exciting topic, but that’s where all the questions for me are coming from for the past two weeks, and that’s what I’ve been writing about in my Huriyet Daily News columns....
View ArticleCivil war in Turkish economic policymaking
The government announced tax hikes last Saturday in response to the deterioration in the budget, or maybe to fill the coffers for pork barrel spending before the upcoming elections. Here’s the intro....
View ArticleTurkey: The president’s speech
Nearly a fifth of President Abdullah Gül’s speech at the commencement ceremony of the Parliament on Oct. 1 was devoted to economics. Here’s the intro. to my Hurriyet Daily News (HDN) column from last...
View ArticleTurkey Zindabad or, ‘in the bag’: Is Turkey getting investment grade soon?
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Here’s the intro. to my latest Hurriyet Daily News (HDN) column, where I use the Tolstoy analogy to discuss how Turkish...
View ArticleFriday I’m in love (with the Central Bank of Turkey)
I could not think of a better inaugural Friday column than Turkish monetary policy, given my extensive coverage of the topic. That is partly the Central Bank’s fault, as they have introduced quite a...
View ArticleCentral Bank of Turkey Inflation Report: An inflation report not about inflation
Of course, I am being sarcastic. The Central Bank of Turkey’s latest inflation report, which was introduced yesterday by Governor Erdem Başçı, was naturally true to its name. Here’s the intro. to my...
View ArticleQuantitative easing III: Boon or bane for Turkey?
As you may (or may not) know, Economonitor is running a special topic this week: “Is QE3 harmful or beneficial to other countries?”. Therefore, as their in-house Turkey blogger, I decided to write...
View ArticleInvestors want to gobble up Turkey
I spent the first half of the week in London, invited by an investment bank to speak to their clients on the Turkish economy. I met with half a dozen or so investors on Tuesday. Here is the intro. to...
View ArticleThe Governor’s Speech: Central Bank of Turkey targets the real exhange rate
Well, not quite… But speaking to the newly minted Turkish finance portal AA Finans on Monday (videos naturally in Turkish), Central Bank of Turkey Governor Erdem Basci said that if the real effective...
View ArticleStill Moody on Turkey
All the investors I spoke to during my London investor trip two weeks ago were wondering how the Central Bank would respond to excessive capital flows, and whether credit rating agency Moody’s would...
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