In the expenditure accounts of Turkey, export revenues stood at 571.4 billion TL (22.05% of GDP) while import expenditures were higher at 648.3 billion TL (25.03% of GDP). This resulted in a negative net export value of -76.9 billion TL (-2.98% of GDP), highlighting a structural trade deficit.
According to the Turkish Tax Inspection Board's 2016 Annual Report, tax audits revealed that taxpayers on average declare only half of their actual income. This widespread tax evasion suggests that the informal economy in Turkey could easily exceed 50% of the official GDP figures.
Modern macroeconomics emerged as a distinct field of study to explain the prolonged high unemployment and output losses of the Great Depression in the 1930s. The starting point of the discipline is widely recognized as the publication of John Maynard Keynes's book 'General Theory' in 1936.
In the 1800s, the average working week was approximately 70 hours, whereas today it has decreased to about 40 hours. This increase in leisure time represents a significant rise in human welfare and economic wealth, yet it is completely excluded from GDP calculations.
In Keynesian macroeconomic diagrams, a line drawn at a 45-degree angle from the origin serves as a reference where the value on the vertical axis (expenditure/consumption) is exactly equal to the value on the horizontal axis (income). It identifies the break-even point where savings are zero.
Data from Turkey between 1990 and 2016 demonstrates a negative short-run relationship between inflation and unemployment. When policies are implemented to reduce inflation, unemployment tends to rise, and vice versa, showing the trade-offs faced by policymakers.
Between 2012 and 2016, pen production value in a sample economy rose from 1,600 thousand TL to 2,200 thousand TL, representing a 37.5% nominal increase. However, when deflated using a price index (base year 2012 = 100), the real value rose to only 1,833 thousand TL, a real growth of just 14.6%.
If a pharmaceutical company develops a new drug that is twice as effective as an old one but produces it at the same cost and sells it at the same price, GDP remains unchanged. This illustrates a key limitation of GDP, as it fails to capture quality improvements that enhance welfare.
Non-marketed services, such as cooking, cleaning, and raising children provided by housewives, are excluded from GDP calculations. This exclusion is not because these activities are worthless, but because estimating their true monetary value is highly subjective and difficult.