FINANCIAL LIBERALIZATION, FINANCIAL DEVELOPMENT AND ECONOMIC GROWTH: AN EMPRICAL ANALYSIS FOR TURKEY

The objective of the paper is to seek how financial growth affects economic growth in Turkey in the flourishing world. The financial market is changed and developed very rapidly in the last decade. Moreover the change of financial market has also been brought some innovations and new policies. So this study examines whether financial development leads to economic growth in Turkey. The main elements of financial liberalization that have been used commonly in the literature are considered for analysis. This is because financial liberalization is the first step to achieve financial development and can contribute to development. In the light of financial development between the period of 1980 and 2010, cointegration and Granger casuality tests are applied to assess the finance-growth linkages. There is a strong relation between finance and growth in the short-run, but it is failed in the long-run casuality. Contrary to the conventional findings in the literature, the results of the analysis support that there is one way link from financial development to economic growth for Turkey and it is necessary to take different policies to improve growth and maintain the steady economic growth. Key variables: Financial growth, financial liberalization, economic growth, Casuality, Cointegration JEL Codes: D53, E44, F43, G01, C22