When the misery index was first proposed by Arthur Okun, it was an indicator consisting of the unemployment rate and the inflation rate:
Okun Misery Index = Inflation Rate + Unemployment Rate
The rise in unemployment shows that the number of people without income is increasing, the rise in inflation shows that life is becoming more expensive, the rise in the index shows that misery is increasing, and therefore the economy is deteriorating. Over time, the index was reformulated by Robert Barro and Steve Hanke (HAMI misery index). In its reformulated form, it is possible to express the index with an equation as follows:
HAMI Misery Index = (Inflation Rate + Unemployment Rate + Interest Rate) – Growth Rate
Ten-year government bond interest rates are taken as the interest rate here. If the growth rate is positive, that is, if the economy has grown, this rate should be reduced because economic growth reduces misery. On the contrary, if the growth rate is negative, that is, if the economy has shrunk, then this rate needs to be added to the total, because negative growth brings an increase in misery.
The table below reveals the development of the HAMI misery index in Turkey over the years (Inflation, unemployment and growth rates in the table were taken from TÜİK website, and 10-year bond interest rates were taken from Bloomberg HT website.)
The table can be found in the original text, linked at the bottom. The rise in the index over the years is as follows:
2017: 26.8
2018: 47.3
2020: 37.8
2021: 60.7
2022: 78.2
2023: 93.9
Turkey abandoned separation of powers by switching to the presidential system in 2017. The ratification of the constitutional change was not exactly aimed at creating this bizarre system. The promise was that Turkey would institute a presidential system, but the separation of powers, independence of the judiciary, and separation of the legislature from the executive would continue.
Only, the President would actually be the head of the executive, not the Prime Minister duly elected by the Grand Assembly. However, this was not the practice. As a result of unrelenting exercise of “party discipline” by the President, the legislature came under the command of the executive, the independence of the judiciary was gradually eliminated, and today’s strong-man presidential system was reached.
Throughout this transition period, the pro-government propaganda always claimed that Turkey’s troubles with coalitions would be left behind, that the country would move forward by making faster decisions in every field, that its prosperity would increase, and that it would get ahead in world rankings.
The exact opposite of the propaganda happened. Turkey went backwards in every field after switching to the presidential system. In my previous articles, I shared Turkey’s social, political and economic indicators in comparison with the world countries within the framework of the indices of various impartial organizations. These comparisons revealed that Turkey was constantly going backwards after switching to the presidential system.
The misery index, like other indices and indicators, shows that misery has increased in Turkey with the transition to the presidential system. When we look at the results of 2022, Turkey ranks 10th (worst) in the world from worst to best in the misery index.
By Economist Mahfi Eğilmez, link to his blog site here
Follow our English language YouTube videos @ REAL TURKEY: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKpFJB4GFiNkhmpVZQ_d9Rg
And content at Twitter: @AtillaEng
Facebook: Real Turkey Channel: https://www.facebook.com/realturkeychannel/