Relative Income Growth and Convergence, Winter 2004

This paper assesses the growth prospects for the Turkish economy over the next decade. It implicitly asks whether Turkey can start closing the gap with the EU in terms of income per capita when it has achieved macroeconomic stability and when the negotiations with the EU provide an anchor for overall economic policy-making.Viewed from this perspective, the outlook is promising. Turkey is still poor, compared to most of the existing EU members, but is also more dynamic. The fact that most of the so-called ‘periphery’ is now growing more strongly than the ‘core’ confirms that within an enlarged EU the poorer member countries are likely to prosper and thus they cause fewer problems than widely anticipated...