Middle income trap within economic growth: A comparative analysis on with Turkey, South Korea and Greece

Countries have always been at the forefront of increasing their per capita income, life expectancy, social and educational opportunities in line with their economic growth goals. With the impact of globalization, a particular portion of the countries that implemented export-driven growth models in 1980 have not been able to achieve this hoped-for development trend. Significant economic growth issues, particularly in the area of poverty and income distribution faced by emerging and backward economies, have diversified, increasing day by day. In this context, the "Middle Income Trap" (OGT) is one of the most discussed and issues of economic growth involving emerging economies. According to the classification of national income per capita established by the World Bank, it is is expressed to as the OGT that economies that have reached the middle income group cannot exceed that level and remain stuck in that group and cannot reach the level of developed economies. In this study, examined the period 1996Q1-2019Q1 with time series analyzes of some variables created using the convergence method and quarterly data, based on the examples of high income countries selected by Turkey. The objective of this study, is to draw attention to the OGT situation that Turkey has been facing for years, to examine the issue of how Turkey can increase its per capita income level to the level of selected developed countries and economic and social indicators that can be effective in combating the OGT. Within the framework of the convergence analysis, selected countries were found to have raised their initial per capita income levels over the period on basis. As part of the unit root test analyses that examine individual performance of countries, Turkey converges on South Korea from the pre-2005Q1 period to the 2009Q1 period; In the period from 2009Q1 to 2019Q1, it was found to have diverged from South Korea. The results of the time series analysis show that Turkey's current economic structure, Research-Development (R&D) activities and factors such as human capital are not conducive to capturing developed countries and are caught in the OGT. The analysis found that Turkey needs to implement immediately fundamental structural reforms in areas such as freedom, justice, innovation, education in the fight against the OGT in order to assess the emerging opportunities in the new global economy, otherwise it is not possible for South Korea and Greece to enter the growth trend it has demonstrated. Key Words : Economic Growth, Middle Income Trap, Convergence and Time Series Analysis.