The effect of election economies on macroeconomic variables in Turkey

In forms of government dominated by democracy, the determination of the manager is happening possible through the voting preferences of voters who meet certain conditions. Therefore, voters' voting behavior and their decisions in this direction can be determined especially as a result of political developments. At the same time, voters can participate in the voting process by closely following political developments or taking into account the political preferences of certain person(s). Politicians, on the other hand, may choose to increase their chances in elections by following opportunistic policies before the elections. In this regard, politicians may carry out activities that will affect many macroeconomic variables before election periods. Politicians carry out activities that support economic growth, reduce unemployment, and aim to increase total demand, especially during election periods. This study examined whether the parties in power in Turkey developed policies based on political conjuncture theories before the election. While making the analysis, the intervention of politics into the economy was taken into account within the framework of traditional opportunistic policies theory. In the study, it was investigated with annual data whether the general elections held between 1980 and 2019 caused developments that support the theory of political cyclical fluctuations in the Turkish economy. To determine the specified theory, current account balance, budget balance, public personnel expenses and transfer expenditure variables were used. Whereas the years in which general elections were held are indicated with dummy variables. Within the framework of Nordhaus's "traditional opportunistic model", the analysis was made with the autoregressive model used in the studies of Alesina, Cohen and Roubini (1991) and the structural break unit root test model of LeeStrazicich (2003) and Meng, Lee and Payne (2017). Additionally, a different autoregressive model was created to examine each election period separately. According to the analysis results, information was obtained that the eleven general elections held in the specified period were effective on the variables examined and that election economics was applied. The investigations revealed that the policies and activities implemented before the election may change depending on the economic conditions, political structure and voter preferences.