The Analysis of the Effects of Military Coups on Gross National Product in Turkey: 1950-1984

Abstract

This study examines the economic effects of military coups on the Turkish Economy between the years 1950-1984 by employing a special statistical method, called Hybrid Spline Regression Technique, which is appropriate for this particular case. Throughout these years, the army took over the economic and politic administration of Turkey three times. All these experiences caused a shift away from democracy, and caused sharp declines in the Turkish economy. This phenomenon created the general impression that each coup pulled Turkish economy 10 years back. It is possible to clearly see this in the economic data of the country. Therefore, the 1950-1984 period, generally known as the 'era of coups,' has been the subject of many previous studies. However, all of these studies employed classical statistical methods, which were not as successful as Spline Methodology in determining the economic cost of the coups. For this reason, we first aimed to evaluate this period and to detect the economic cost of military interventions by determining the loss in the Gross National Product of Turkey. Subsequently, we presented an alternative statistical tool for researchers working on similar economic data by using the spline regression technique.