Istanbul
Macroeconomics lesson
“Guest lecture” today from Osman Akçay, Chief Economist at YapıKredi. (We were his guests.) He talked about the Turkish central bank’s actions after 2001 and after 2008 - particularly interesting was the combination of lowering interest rates and tightening controls over banks (e.g., increasing capital requirements). The global financial media didn’t respond positively, but Akçay laid out logic that made a ton of sense: slow the economy by decreasing lending (even with low rates) while keeping the Lira somewhat undervalued to boost exports.