SEARCHING FOR POLITICAL BUSINESS CYCLES IN TURKEY: FINDINGS FROM FISCAL POLICY

Abstract

In this study Traditional Opportunistic Political Business Cycle Theory was tested for the Turkish economy using series of public expenditure, other public transfer expenditure, tax revenues and budget deficit for the period 1987-2002. The reason for the use of these variables in the analysis is that these variables have often been used in analyses for fiscal policy at the macroeconomic level in the literature of Traditional Opportunistic Political Business Cycle Theory. In the determination of whether or not political opportunistic policies were observed in general elections held in the 1987Q1-2002Q4 period, the “Seasonal Box-Jenkins Models” used by Alesina, Cohen and Roubini (1991, 1992) for OECD countries and industrial countries, was used in this study.