The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on public financial balances: The case of Turkey

From the past to the present, the devastation brought about by each stage of society has caused many epidemics with endemic, epidemic, and pandemic characteristics. Millions of people have lost their lives in these epidemics and epidemic-induced crises have caused huge negative effects in terms of health, economic, social, political, and even national security in the world. In this context, the first part of the study examines in detail the emergence of epidemics, the types of epidemics, and the demographic, financial, political, and social effects of each epidemic throughout history. The devastation caused by epidemics on the economy, military, economic education, health, and social life is tried to be mitigated by public policies implemented by governments. In this context, in the second part of the thesis, public policies implemented by selected countries in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, firstly, to limit the spread of the virus, such as restricting social life, restricting mobility, health and education, and then focusing on combating the negative effects of restrictive policy practices on the economy, monetary policies within the framework of economic policies and especially public expenditures and public revenues within the scope of fiscal policy. Finally, the impact of the pandemic on the public fiscal balances of selected countries is discussed. In the last section of the study, Turkey's public fiscal policy implementations against the COVID-19 pandemic are examined in detail and then the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the budget balance is analyzed. First of all, in addition to the COVID-19 dummy variables, variables such as inflation, domestic debt interest rate, exchange rate, current account balance, public revenue, and public expenditures are determined. Accordingly, the stationarity of the variables was analyzed with the unit root test, and the ARDL bounds test was utilized. Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic, Public Fiscal Policy, Public Fiscal Balance.