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Criminal probe into economists who say prices are rising at double official rate highlights government jitters
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Ankara struggles to control inflation narrative as Turks’ mistrust mounts
SEP 23, 2021
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Shortly after a small group of Turkish academics began publishing their findings on inflation late last year, their data began to reflect what many Turks already suspected: prices were rising twice as fast as the government claimed.
The setback of Ankara was rapid. In February, the state-run Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) filed a criminal complaint against the independent Inflation Research Group (ENAG), which uses high-frequency data collection to track online prices and concluded that annual consumer price inflation is now around. 40 per cent, compared to TurkStat’s 19.5 per cent figure.
“Our goal was not to take a step against TurkStat or to create an alternative inflation rate,” said Veysel Ulusoy, who teaches economics at Yeditepe University and employs a dozen or so volunteers, including doctoral students, mathematicians and accountants. leading the independent inflation project. . “But polarization is everywhere in Turkey, even in the statistics.”
A prosecutor in Istanbul is now investigating TurkStat’s accusation that the group violated the rules required to publish its methodology. Ulusoy said ENAG’s research appeared in a peer-reviewed journal and called the allegation unfounded, but that expected charges would be filed in the coming months.
The legal problems of ENAG show how sad the subject numbers in Turkey are. The government registered the fastest
economic growth in more than two decades in the second quarter of this year, but opinion polls show that many Turks are feeling out of bounds because inflation and unemployment remain in double digits, with a majority losing their confidence in official figures. The cost of living, unemployment and the economy were at the top of respondents’ list of concerns in recent surveys.
It reduces support for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), now at historic lows two years before the next election. The survey by the Turkiye Raporu polling agency this month found the lowest level of support for the ruling party at 29.9 percent, and its director Can Selcuki said that unhappiness with the economy was the main factor in the slump.
The central bank, which is meeting to set interest rates on Thursday, is under pressure from Erdogan to cut borrowing costs, although inflation has been stuck in double digits for the past four years. In March, the president appointed Governor Sahap Kavciolgu, a former newspaper writer who shares Erdogan’s unconventional view that high interest rates drive inflation, rather than suppress it.
Erdogan has long exercised strict control over economic policy by appointing and dismissing senior officials by a resolution. He has fired three central bank executives since 2019 for failing to lower interest rates quickly enough, and the subsequent uncertainty over the direction of monetary policy has hurt a third of the value of the lira against the dollar.
Kavcioglu has so far resisted the president’s pressure to lower the main interest rate by 19 percent as consumer prices rise. After saying this month that the bank will now look at the lower core inflation rate if it sets interest rates, it could deliver returns at Thursday’s meeting.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blames ‘opportunists’ for rising costs © Reuters
While economies around the world are struggling with inflation amid large-scale stimulus spending during the Covid-19 pandemic, the increasing demand and supply constraints of consumers, Erdogan in Turkey blames “opportunists” for rising costs. “By bringing inflation under control as soon as possible, we will prevent the exorbitant price increases on the shelf,” he said last week.
According to local media, government inspectors were sent to supermarkets last week in an attempt to drive up suspected prize money. “It combats the symptoms because the government does not want to take the bitter medicine,” said Atilla Yesilada, an analyst at Istanbul-based consultant Global Source Partners. The rise in inflation “requires much higher interest rates and cuts in budget spending. Rents and food inflation are due to structural problems that require more time than the AKP needs to win the next election. ”
Other statistics also show faster than reported. Steve Hanke, a professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University, uses purchasing power parity linked to the dollar exchange rate and found that consumer prices rose by twice the TurkStat rate in June.
“Erdogan, like all politicians, wants a low inflation rate, GDP growth must look high, interest rates must be pushed down,” Hanke said. ‘Because all of this is going negatively, Erdogan is being urged to hide the data. . . He is convinced that high interest rates cause inflation, which makes it very difficult to fight inflation. ”
TurkStat called media reports that its data was being manipulated “unfounded and fictitious” and said its statistics met international norms and standards.
But the public distrust in its numbers is deep. A poll by Aksoy Research this month showed that more than half of the participants believe that the economy shrank during the second quarter, when TurkStat achieved a growth of 21.7 percent. Metropoll found that 82 percent of respondents did not believe TurkStat’s reported drop in inflation to 16.6 percent in May.
ENAG uses web scraping to check prices at online retailers every day, to locate the same items and give them the same weight as TurkStat. Lutfi Elvan, the country’s finance minister, urged the public to ignore the findings of ENAG and argued that the group wanted to “slander” TurkStat.
“They have no right to mislead people, and they will get the appropriate response in court,” he said in a television interview earlier this year. He denies any political interference at TurkStat.
Ulusoy initially hoped to partner with TurkStat and provide measurements they currently cannot see. “It’s not just in Turkey, the static measure of inflation is wrong everywhere,” he said.
“People know that ENAG’s data reflects Turkey’s inflation, based on the money they have in their pockets and the prices on the street,” he said, adding, “even if it’s a terrible figure no one wants.