From EconoMonitor

Hello,

This blog is a collection on my ramblings on Economics. I plan to write on current economic issues, recent research (sometimes mine, but more often others’), and issues of interest to economists. As I hail from Turkey, I will focus mainly on the Turkish economy, as evidenced by the blog’s title, but you may see another country from time to time, especially if I am doing some work on the country-for example, you will see a post on Jordan in the next couple of days or so. And while I will write in English, I may rarely refer/hyperlink to articles in Turkish, but only if they are extremely important and even then when a summary in English is not available. So apologies in advance for those rare instances if you do not speak Turkish.

As for me, there is a short bio under my Economonitor profile page, and here’s my full CV, which is also on the profile page, but for reason that is not working- will get that fixed soon. And if you would like to contact me, there is some info. on my Economonitor contact page.

A couple of words on the blog’s title, especially if you are not Turkish. Carsi is my football team Besiktas‘ famous support group- you can read (or hear) more about it in the great article by Elif Batuman. It literally means “bazaar” or “market”, and it refers to the central marketplace of Istanbul district Besiktas, where the group was founded. In my header, you can see the group’s logo; the “anarchy A” refers to the group’s leftist tendencies.

“Kapali” means “covered” and is the part of the stadium where Carsi fans watch the games. If you have read Nick Hornby’s hugely entertaining (at least for a like-minded guy like me) Fever Pitch, this is more or less the equivalent of South Stand in the Arsenal Stadium of the 1970s and 80s. It is only natural that your friendly neighborhood economist has a season pass at the Kapali. You can see the Kapali on the left part of my header. I sit to the left of the picture, i.e. the right part of the stands, to the back…

Finally, the Kapali Carsi refers to Istanbul’s famed “covered bazaar”. As you’ll see and hopefully learn to appreciate (or at least bear with it for the sake of my analysis), I tend to do a lot of silly wordplays, and this is just one of them. Kapalicarsi has many gates, but you can see the famous Nuruosmaniye gate at the right side of the header.

And finally, please note that comments are never required, they are always appreciated, sort of like tipping policy at a friendly Midwestern diner, so don’t be shy about commenting. As readers from my previous blog, which became inactive as of today as I migrated to Economonitor, would know, I am usually quick to respond to comments, so comments are also a good way to ask questions on my posts, other Turkey economy topics or even the meaning of life:)… And BTW, no the end of the world is not today!