{"id":144845,"date":"2011-11-28T15:01:06","date_gmt":"2011-11-28T11:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=144845"},"modified":"2011-11-28T15:02:17","modified_gmt":"2011-11-28T11:02:17","slug":"euro-crisis-ticking-bomb-for-turkey-says-turkish-armenian-economist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2011\/11\/28\/euro-crisis-ticking-bomb-for-turkey-says-turkish-armenian-economist.html","title":{"rendered":"Euro Crisis ‘Ticking Bomb’ for Turkey, Says Turkish-Armenian Economist"},"content":{"rendered":"

The eurozone debt crisis has turned the European economy into \u201ca ticking time bomb\u201d that lies at Turkey\u2019s door, according to a top economist who has been ranked among the most influential thinkers of our time, reports the H\u00fcrriyet Daily News<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the H\u00fcrriyet in an interview last week, Daron Acemo\u011flu, a Turkish professor of Armenian descent at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), also urged the Turkish Central Bank to raise interest rates from their current historic lows.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe European time bomb lies at the door for Turkey,\u201d Acemo\u011flu said. \u201cThe Turkish economy is closely connected to the European economy. Thus, it is open to all possible shocks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regarding the possibility of a new global recession, Acemo\u011flu put the chance as high as 50 percent. \u201cIf there is a new recession in Europe, Turkey would go back to experience 2009 once again,\u201d he said, a year when the Turkish economy contracted by 4.7 percent.<\/p>\n

Despite the positive effects of economic reforms, Turkey should \u201cincrease interest rates\u201d in order to put the brakes on strong domestic demand, Acemo\u011flu said, adding that such a move would provide the policy flexibility that would be necessary following a possible shock from the eurozone.<\/p>\n

\u201cTurkey aims to slow down credit expansion while keeping interest rates too low. This is not the right thing to do,\u201d Acemo\u011flu said. According to the 44-year old economist, today\u2019s Turkey has similarities with the pre-crisis period of US and European economies.<\/p>\n

\u201cA key [sign] of an economic crisis is overspending and overconsumption, which generally is followed by a sharp decline in consumption later on, creating serious problems,\u201d he warned.<\/p>\n

Reminded of Turkey\u2019s offer to appoint him as the permanent representative to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Daren Acemo\u011flu said he was \u201cproud\u201d of this offer. \u201cI have not rejected it, but I prefer to write my books and continue my academic life,\u201d he said. \u201cMaybe I can consider this offer in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

If he had accepted, Acemo\u011flu, who became a professor at the age of 33, would have been the first Turkish-Armenian to have been appointed to such a post.<\/p>\n

In March, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davuto\u011flu confirmed the offer, saying that it was \u201cinconceivable\u201d for the government to discriminate between the citizens of the Turkish Republic. \u201cWe can appoint everyone [who is qualified] to represent Turkey. In this respect, the main criterion for us is qualification. Indeed, we have offered Daron Acemo\u011flu to represent us at the OECD a few months ago,\u201d Davuto\u011flu said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The eurozone debt crisis has turned the European economy into \u201ca ticking time bomb\u201d that lies at Turkey\u2019s door, according to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":144806,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[19318,35143,35145,35147,35146,35144,35142,10222],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144845"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}