Analysis of the relationship between social protection expenditures and income distribution in Turkey

Public social policies of states include social protection and income distribution targets. Policies for social protection and income distribution both contribute to social welfare and accompany development and growth. In particular, the adoption of the social welfare state structure has the goals of achieving social welfare along with economic growth. In this study, simulation-based forecast was made in order to reveal the relationship between social protection expenditures and income distribution in Turkey. In this context, the VAR model was established with the share of social protection expenditures in GDP, unemployment, inflation, the GINI coefficient, the share of indirect taxes in total taxes and openness variables. In the analysis, firstly, the period of 2000-2019 was estimated, and then the forecast for the period of 2020-2039 was made. In addition, the forecast for the period of 2020-2039 was repeated by developing two different scenarios. Thus, the relationships between variables in case of default scenario changes were analyzed.