Financial Measures Taken in Turkey and Selected Countries in Combatting COVID-19 Outbreak

Abstract

AbstractIn the process passing from past to present, the world history has witnessed many natural and unnatural disasters. Negative events particularly climate change and including outbreaks have caused the world to be affected economically and socially, and caused these said negativities to become global today. The COVID-19 outbreak, which emerged in Wuhan, China's Hubei state, was declared as a “pandemic” in the fourth quarter of 2019, on March 11, 2020, by the World Health Organization (WHO). It is estimated that the economic destruction of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as its dimension affecting human beings, will be significant by the end of 2020. In addition to the loss of numerous lives around the world, another impact of the virus has been experienced by the global economy. The fact that this flu, which originated in Central Asia, has spread to the USA and Europe has had an impact on the currencies of countries, capital markets, precious metals, barrel oil prices, and even virtual currencies, causing volatile fluctuations in the global markets. In the process that the world is in, COVID-19 has brought the entire world to a significant historical turning point. The entire world has focused on two main issues at this historical turning point. The first of them is to fight the pandemic, to minimize casualties, and to eradicate the pandemic. The second step is to take an action to avoid the crises and damage that will occur in post-epidemic economies. All countries have begun to implement socialization policies in order to protect public health and fight the pandemic when the COVID-19 disease spread around the world. Closures of educational institutions, primarily in trade and tourism, work restrictions, and restrictions on human mobility have had a rapid negative impact on all sectors. Today's economy is a structure where employees, financial institutions, companies, suppliers, consumers, and countries are interconnected. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused the economy to ground to a halt. It is stated that the economy has suffered an unprecedented negative shock as a result of this pandemic. The closure of borders, restrictions on transportation, the lockdown of people in their homes, the imposition of curfews, the reduction of import and export activities, decrease in both supply and demand, as well as the unprecedented developments in the global economy, distinguished this crisis from others. It could not be avoided that all countries around the world, including Turkey, would be affected by this situation. The economic effect of the COVID-19 pandemic harmed the sectors of the economy that directly benefit from natural resources, particularly agriculture (primary sector), the sector where industrial activities take place (secondary sector), and the industries where all services are provided (tertiary sector) (such as education, finance, and tourism sectors). Countries around the world implement economic measures to mitigate the effects of the economic crisis. Financial measures, which are primarily among the economic measures taken by countries in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, are discussed in the study in this context.KeywordsAnahtar Kelimeler: COVID-19Economic crisisFinancial measuresOutbreakTaxSelected countries