Evaluation of the Economic Performances of the European Union Countries and Turkey in the Covid-19 Process with the COPRAS Method
Halil Kete, Fatih KarasaçThe COVID-19 pandemic has caused the biggest global economic crisis since the Second World War. The European Union, one of the world’s largest economic and political unions, was also seriously affected by this process. This study examines the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, which emerged in December 2019 and showed its effect intensely in 2020, on the economic performances of 27 member states of the European Union and Turkey, which is a candidate country for the European Union. The Complex Proportional Assessment (COPRAS) technique was used to measure the economic performance of the countries covered in the study. COPRAS is one of the multi-criteria decision-making methods that aims to make a general ranking from the most desired to the least desired in line with the determined criteria. In the study, countries for economic performance measurement; GDP growth rates, per capita GDP current account balance, budget balance, unemployment rate, EU defined general government debt stock and inflation rate data are used. According to the results of the analysis made with the COPRAS method, Slovenia was the best country in terms of economic performance in the context of the data discussed, followed by Denmark and Germany, respectively. The country with the lowest performance in terms of economic performance was Turkey. Turkey is followed by the Greek part of Southern Cyprus and Greece. It has been observed that inflation and unemployment rates have a quite different structure compared to other countries included in the analysis, as the reason for Turkey’s low performance.
Covid-19 Sürecinde Avrupa Birliği Ülkeleri ve Türkiye’nin Ekonomik Performanslarının COPRAS Yöntemi ile Değerlendirilmesi
Halil Kete, Fatih KarasaçCOVID-19 pandemisi, İkinci Dünya Savaşı’ndan bu yana yaşanan en büyük küresel ekonomik krize neden olmuştur. Dünyanın en büyük ekonomik ve siyasi birliklerinden olan Avrupa Birliği de bu süreçten ciddi bir şekilde etkilenmiştir. Bu çalışma 2019 Aralık ayında ortaya çıkan ve 2020 yılında etkisini yoğun bir şekilde gösteren COVID-19 pandemisinin Avrupa Birliği’ne üye 27 ülke ile Avrupa Birliği’ne aday ülke konumunda olan Türkiye’nin ekonomik performanslarına etkisini incelemektedir. Çalışmada ele alınan ülkelerin ekonomik performanslarının ölçümü için Complex Proportional Assessment (COPRAS) tekniği kullanılmıştır. COPRAS belirlenen kriterler doğrultusunda en çok istenenden en az istenene doğru genel bir sıralama yapılmasını amaçlayan çok kriterli karar verme yöntemlerinden biridir. Çalışmada ekonomik performans ölçümü için ülkelerin; GSYH büyüme oranları, kişi başına düşen GSYH, cari denge, bütçe dengesi, işsizlik oranı, AB tanımlı genel yönetim borç stoku ve enflasyon oranı verileri kullanılmıştır. COPRAS yöntemi ile yapılan analizin sonuçlarına göre, Slovenya ele alınan veriler bağlamında ekonomik performans bakımından en iyi ülke olmuş, bu ülkeyi sırasıyla Danimarka ve Almanya’nın izlediği görülmüştür. Ekonomik performans bakımında en düşük performansı gösteren ülke ise Türkiye olmuştur. Türkiye’yi Güney Kıbrıs Rum kesimi ve Yunanistan izlemiştir. Türkiye’nin göstermiş olduğu düşük performansın nedeni olarak bilhassa enflasyon ve işsizlik oranlarının analize dahil edilen diğer ülkelere göre oldukça farklı bir yapıya sahip olduğu gözlenmiştir.
The COVID 19 pandemic has adversely affected the economic structures of almost all countries. Quarantine measures taken to prevent the spread of the pandemic are one of the reasons why economies are negatively affected. In this period, governments took measures to suspend some commercial activities to reduce the effects of the pandemic. The measures taken have led to a decline in global demand, bringing production, transportation, manufacturing, and other economic activities to a standstill in most economies.
The quarantine measures taken to prevent the COVID-19 pandemic also adversely affected the macroeconomic indicators of the countries. During this period, GDP in the European Union decreased by more than 6% compared to last year (EUROSTAT, 2021). Similarly, with the effect of the measures taken, great supply shocks were experienced, and the global trade volume contracted. This has led to a decrease in employment and an increase in unemployment rates. In 2020, when the pandemic was most intense, the unemployment rate in the EU was 7.1% on average. Likewise, tax reductions, credit facilities and subsidies to prevent companies in trouble in the short term have caused the budget balance in EU countries to deteriorate. The fact that the EU average in terms of budget deficit is 0.5% in 2019 and 6.9% in 2020 summarizes the emerging situation (EUROSTAT, 2021).
Like the economic difficulties experienced by the EU member states, Turkey, which is in the process of joining the EU, has also been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has also caused supply and demand shocks in the Turkish economy. Due to the measures taken against the pandemic, the balance between public revenues and expenditures has deteriorated. Foreign capital outflow accelerated in 2020, which brought about an increase in exchange rates. The pandemic similarly affected macroeconomic indicators such as production, employment, current account balance, budget balance, and central government debt burden negatively (Adıgüzel, 2020, p.219). Turkey caught the pandemic at a time when the economy was in recession and structural problems were intense. Especially in the last four years, the low acceleration in the economy has put more strain on the macroeconomic balances. In the early stages of the pandemic in Turkey, measures were generally taken through semi-financial channels. Credit expansion on favorable terms through public banks and government credit guarantees were the leading ones. The difficulties Turkey has experienced in recent years in terms of monetary policy have increased with the pandemic. These developments resulted in the deterioration of economic performance.
The development of multi-criteria decision-making methods has provided the opportunity to rank the economic performance of countries, to choose between alternatives and to classify countries (Karahan et al. 2021, p. 584). Multi-criteria decision-making methods are expressed as both an approach and a set of techniques aimed at making a general order from the most desired to the least desired among the options (Dodgson et al., 2009, p. 50). The purpose of multi-criteria decision-making methods is to improve the quality of decisions by making alternative criteria more clear, usable, and effective, and to provide decision makers with strong abilities to analyze, discover and compare a series of incompatible alternatives (Dinçer, 2011, p. 563).
In this study, the economic performances of the European Union member states and Turkey were analyzed by Complex Proportional Assessment (COPRAS), one of the multicriteria decision-making methods, in 2020, when the pandemic was first seen, and its economic effects were most aggressive. The aim of this study is to analyze and compare the economic performances of 27 member states of the European Union and Turkey in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began. COPRAS method, one of the multi-criteria decisionmaking methods, was preferred for performance analysis. To measure the economic performance, seven criteria consisting of the percentage of GNP Growth, GNP per capita in Euros, current account balance, budget balance/GDP ratio, unemployment rate, EU Defined General Government Debt stock/GDP ratio and inflation rate were used.
According to the results of the study, the ranking from the highest to the lowest points in the context of the estimated data for the countries is: Slovenia, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Lithuania, Estonia, Sweden, Czechia, Austria, Spain, Belgium, Poland, Finland, Croatia, Ireland, Bulgaria, Portugal, Malta, France, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Greece, Cyprus and Turkey. When the ranking made according to the COPRAS results and the country data are examined, it is observed that the countries in the first places generally have low inflation rates, low unemployment rates, and have current account surpluses. However, the shrinkage in the economy is at smaller levels in the first place. In the countries that are in the last place according to their score points, inflation is not very serious except for Turkey. Large current account deficits are given. Budget deficits are at high levels. Unemployment rates are very high. Public debt burden is high in countries other than Turkey.
