TURKEY: CRISIS OF IMF-DIRECTED POLICIES AND POSSIBILITY OF ALTERNATIVES

The beginning of the 2001 in Turkey has been marked by a very destructive economic crisis. The increased fragility of the system after the implementation of an IMF-directed “disinflation and stabilization” program paved the way to the collapse of both the program itself and the economy. This paper argues that the crisis can neither be explained solely by the coincidence of independent events nor by technical problems of economic policies. The IMF-directed policies caused the crises by increasing the fragility of the system. Insistence on these policies will only worsen the conditions and results of these policies are both economically and socially undesirable. This paper shows that alternative policies and tools, which will provide improvements in growth, employment, and income distribution are available