A Location of Turkey among the European Union Countries in Terms of Inclusive Growth and Health Outcome Indicators

Abstract

Inclusive growth and health outcomes improvement constitute main drivers of sustainable economic growth and development. This study examines the location of Turkey among the member of European Union (EU) countries in terms of inclusive growth and health outcome indicators. For this aim, inclusive economic growth indicators, that are consist of six dimensions of World Governance Indicators, belongs to the World Bank and two different health outcome indicators are used, for 28 EU countries and Turkey. Study variables are examined for two different periods, and the location of Turkey among EU countries analyzed by using hierarchical cluster analysis, for the periods of 2002-2007 and 2008-2016, which are called “high-quality” and “low-quality” economic growth, respectively. Clustering results shows that, the position of Turkey is next to the EU countries, which are good in terms of inclusive growth and health outcome indicators and representing root and old members of the EU for the period of 2002-2007; however it is far away from these countries for the period of 2008-2016. Study results emphasize that, it is incontrovertible that Turkey should internalize a policy and implementation culture of giving priority to transparency and accountability, pro-poor growing, improving employment and productivity, encouraging technology and innovation, prioritizing improvement of health status of the population, to achieve similar location with EU countries which have developed economies and have high welfare status.