Politická ekonomie X:X | DOI: 10.18267/j.polek.1527

Unconventional Monetary Policies in Emerging Markets: Turkey's Experience Through the Lens of Synthetic Control

Metin Tetik ORCID..., Emine Tuğbanur Ciğeroğlu ORCID...
Metin Tetik (corresponding author), Department of Public Finance and Banking, Uşak University, Uşak, Turkey
Emine Tuğbanur Ciğeroğlu, Department of International Trade and Finance, Uşak University, Uşak, Turkey

This study investigates the impact of the Central Bank of Turkey\\\'s (CBRT) unconventional monetary policy shift in 2021 particularly aggressive interest rate cuts on inflation and macroeconomic stability by applying the Synthetic Control Method (SCM). A synthetic counterfactual is constructed from countries with comparable macroeconomic characteristics to estimate what Turkey\\\'s inflation trajectory would have been in the absence of the policy change. The results reveal a sharp post-2021 inflation divergence between Turkey and its synthetic counterpart, suggesting that the surge in inflation was largely policy-induced. Placebo tests validate the statistical significance of the findings, while robustness checks confirm the stability of the results.

Keywords: Monetary policy, inflation, synthetic control method,

Received: February 12, 2025; Revised: July 25, 2025; Accepted: August 18, 2025; Prepublished online: March 4, 2026 

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