Turkey: A 100-year-old democracy with ups and downs

In 2023, the Turkish republic will celebrate its 100th birthday with an election that could usher in a new turning point in its history.

Burak Ünveren writes in DW:

The Republic of Turkey was founded 100 years ago. Since then, the country has experienced a transformation from a single-party into a multi-party system, a military coup in 1960, violence on its streets for almost a decade in the 70s, followed by another coup and many unstable coalition governments in the 90s, and an Islamist rise to power in 2002. 

Amid all these minor and major setbacks, the Turkish state, built on Western ideals such as democracy, equality, the rule of law and secularism, has survived and will celebrate its centenary year next year. 

How resilient are Turkey’s democratic institutions, though, as it turns 100?

Inflation illiteracy – a micro-data analysis

Fredrik N. G. Andersson, Erik Hjalmarsson and Pär Österholm of Riksbank analyse what percentage of households that can be considered to be poorly informed about inflation:

Using micro-level survey data from the National Institute of Economic Research’s Economic Tendency Survey, we find that a relatively large share of Swedish households is ill-informed about the rate of inflation in the economy, with perceived and expected rates of inflation deviating substantially from official measures. Probit analysis of the data indicates that such inflation illiteracy is related to respondent characteristics, including income, education and sex. Finally, we show that the treatment
of extreme-value answers has a substantial effect on the aggregated time series typically reported and discussed.