The article analyzes the evolution of the status of the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBTR). At the same time, the nature of the relationship between the Central Bank and the executive branch, the level of independence from it, and therefore the possibility of conducting an independent monetary policy and establishing control over inflation are considered to be the main ones in the concept of status. On the one hand, the evolution of the CBTR's status in the direction of increasing this kind of independence was the result of the weakening of state intervention in the development of the national economy, i.e., it accompanied its market transformation. On the other hand, in the course of economic liberalization in Turkey, as in other countries with growing markets, the degree of consistency in changing the status of national central banks is one of the indicators of maturity and sustainability of new market-type institutions.

Keywords: Turkey, state regulation of the economy, Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBTR), independence of the CBTR, key rate, inflation, economic growth.

The Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBTR) was established in June 1930 on the basis of Law No. 1715. From the second half of the 19th century, the Anglo-French Ottoman Bank had the right to issue the national currency. The decision to create a national central bank was intended to protect Turkey from the adverse effects of the global economic crisis of the late 1920s and early 1930s and to ensure the stability of the national currency. CBTR received the status of a joint-stock company. The distribution of its capital among several shareholders should have been a guarantee against attempts to exert political pressure on the bank in the implementation of monetary policy: the share of the treasury (state) It could not exceed 15% [Akgüç, 1992, p. 136]. Thus, when creating the CBTR, the concept of its functioning was based on the idea of independence from the state, which was effectively ensured by deliberately preventing the latter from owning a controlling stake.

Law No. 1715 formally remained in force for almost four decades, but during this time it was revised and supplemented 22 times [Akgüç 1992, p. 141]. The fact is that during this period in the country's economic development, it was necessary to implement the policy of statism (1930s-1940s), and then-the policy of a mixed economy or public-private partnership (1950s-1970s). Both models were focused on the broad participation of the state in the country's economic development, including: through the system of state entrepreneurship, the financing of which has formed an additional and at the same time very costly item of budget expenditures. Therefore, the amendments made to the law were aimed, according to the Turkish researcher O. Akguc, "to ensure that the Central Bank provides an increasing amount of loans to the Treasury."-

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state - owned enterprises and state economic organizations (state financial trusts authorized to carry out the construction and subsequent management of state-owned industrial enterprises-N. U.)" [Akgüç, 1992, s. 141].

Attempts to change the status of the CBTR became particularly active after 1950, when the government of the Democratic Party (DP) came to power, which the opposition accused of turning the Central Bank into "a robot designed to meet the financial needs of the government by printing money "[Budget Speech 1957..., 1957, p. 125]. Parrying this accusation, the Minister of Finance of the DP Government, H. Polatkan claimed that " the government... it does use credits, but their size is limited by necessity" [Budget Speech 1957..., 1957, p. 125-126]. The Minister did not deny that the CBTR loan portfolio had almost tripled during the years of the DP's rule, but he explained this by saying that the DP administration, while activating all the opportunities for national economic growth, also focused on using the potential of the Central Bank's participation [Budget Speech 1957..., 1957, p. 127-129].

Summing up the results of the almost forty-year period of operation of the first law on CBTR, O. Akgyuch wrote: "Methods of direct financing of the Treasury and state-owned economic organizations by the Central Bank were legalized, which over time lost a significant part of its independence in relation to the state and the Ministry of Finance; the first strict restrictions on the issue of money were soon relaxed, the emphasis in the main tasks of the bank shifted from conducting an effective monetary policy and participating in The CBTR acquired the status of a bank covering the deficit of the public sector" [Akgüç, 1992, p. 141].

A new Central Bank Law (No. 1211) was adopted in Turkey in 1970 on the grounds that "the 1930 Law did not provide the effective monetary policy necessary for balanced development" [Akgüç, 1992, p. 141]. The law was intended to ensure that the Central Bank's monetary policy was carried out in accordance with the objectives of the second five - year plan (1968-1972), in the achievement of which the state-entrepreneur continued to play an important, if not decisive, role. Under the new law, the bank's status was finally transformed from the status of an institution authorized to ensure the stability of the national currency, to the status of one of the institutions responsible for economic growth. As part of the logic of changing the status of the Central Bank, the Treasury's share in the capital of the CBTR was increased to 51%, which was defined as the lower limit of its equity participation [Akgüç, 1992, s. 142]. Thus, the new law did not initially envisage an independent monetary policy of the Central Bank of Russia and officially established the practice of financing the needs of the state from its funds.

Under the new law, the Central Bank was required to coordinate changes in monetary policy with the government: the Bank's responsibility was to implement monetary policy that took into account the objectives of five-year plans and annual development programs. The law required the Bank to act as the" financial agent and treasurer " of the Government [Türkiye Cumhuriyet Merkez Bankasi Kanunu, 14.01.1970]. The first meant that the CBTR was obligated to provide for the purchase of Treasury debt securities, freeing the government from the worries of their placement, and performing the functions of treasurer required the CBTR to make all payments on behalf of the state, both inside and outside the country. In order to perform its agency functions, the CBTR required Turkish banks, in addition to the mandatory reserve ratio, to maintain the liquidity ratio at a certain fixed level. Government securities were counted as liquid assets, which meant that the CBTR created a mechanism that guaranteed the placement of a certain amount of government debt obligations among national banks. The central bank has exercised the right to raise its liquidity ratio in times of particularly acute government borrowing needs-

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For example, in the early 1990s, when it reached 35% of the volume of attracted deposits (Bunay and Kunter, 1998, p. 16). Thus, private sector savings were more actively transferred to the public sector.

Finally, the Central Bank was required to provide the Treasury with short-term loans (direct lending), the annual limit of which was 15% of the total budget expenditures of the current year.

At the same time, the law contained a provision that obliged the Central Bank "together with the government (emphasis added). - N. U.) take necessary measures to protect the value of the national currency in the domestic and foreign markets" [Türkiye Cumhuriyet Merkez Bankasi Kanunu 14.01.1970]. The central bank of the country was charged with the duty to act in the direction of achieving mutually exclusive goals: to lend to state needs, while taking care of the stability of the national currency. However, the impossibility of their simultaneous execution was mitigated by the secondary nature of the requirements for maintaining the stability of the lira.

Turkish author A. Osman wrote that the Central Bank's lending to the Treasury was far from being limited to short-term loans (direct lending) provided under the CBTR law. Loans to the banking sector were represented by loans to state-owned banks. The securities portfolio was formed by government debt obligations [Osman, 2000, p. 7].

Therefore, although the CBTR Law of 1970 included a provision on the provision of borrowed funds to private commercial banks, which was considered very relevant precisely because over the previous decades "the CBTR did not become a 'bank of banks', but remained a personal bank of the Treasury " [Akgüç, 1992, p. 148], the real state of affairs in the following years, nothing fundamentally changed. Moreover, the Russian economist and orientalist E. I. Urazova noted the increase in the rate of mandatory reserves from 20 to 30-35% of the total amount of deposits attracted in the 1970s, which, in her opinion, was directly related to the significant restriction of bank funds allocated for lending to the private sector and the increase in the state lending fund sectors of the economy [Urazova, 1993, p. 170]. The rate of mandatory reserves remained relatively high until the mid-1990s due to the preservation of the CBTR's statutory obligations to lend to the Treasury. This circumstance drew the attention of Fr. Akgüç, noting that in Turkey, the inflationary factor, as well as the deficit of the public finance system, led to the maintenance of a high rate of mandatory bank reserves compared to developed countries [Akgüç, 1992, p. 240].

However, the savings on lending to the banking sector and the attempt to use its funds to meet the financial needs of the state did not have a noticeable positive effect. Since 1950, the growth rate of the money supply in Turkey has significantly increased (see Table 1). The inflationary background is becoming familiar for the development of the Turkish economy (see Figure 1).

A prerequisite for the increase in inflation was the restriction of the independence of the Central Bank of Russia in conducting monetary policy, while it became customary from the second half of the year.

Table 1

Average annual growth rate of the money supply (M1) in Turkey, 1931-1980 (%)

Years

1931 - 1939

1946 - 1950

1951 - 1960

1963 - 1970

1971 - 1980

Growth rate M1

4.75

-1.3

247

13.5

34.9

Compiled and calculated from: [Turkish Financial History, 1999, s. 139, 254, 290].

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Figure 1. Turkish GDP deflator ( % ) Source: Istatistik Göstergeler 1923-2008, 2009, s. 534.

In the first half of the twentieth century, government overreach has already made financial instability a hallmark of the country's economy.

The process of economic liberalization that began in Turkey in the 1980s seemed to imply a change in the status of the CSTDB and its transformation into a structure more independent of the executive branch and removed from solving problems of financing the budget deficit. But in reality, the Central Bank of Turkey was still actively involved in resolving public finance problems, especially when these problems became more acute against the background of the government's stimulating fiscal policy, for example, in the early 1990s. That is, under the conditions of liberalization, the state's expansion partially weakened in the production sector, but it remained and even increased in the financial sector.

The Central Bank, as before, provided loans to the executive branch largely to the detriment of its function as a bank of banks: for a number of years, the state dominated, or even simply turned out to be a monopolist in the use of credit opportunities of the Central Bank of Russia (see Table 2).

The average annual growth rate of the money supply (M1) was about 40% in the 1980s, and slightly less than 80% in the 1990s (calculated from: [Iktisadi Rapor 1985, p. 186; Economic Report 1994, p. 45; Economic Report 1995, p. 56; Ekonomik Rapor 2001, p. 76]). Accordingly, the minimum level of price growth in the 1980s was 22% per year, and the maximum-74%, for the 1990s, the spread of indicators was 70% and 125% per year [Capital Infocard, 2001].

Some changes in the operations of the Central Bank began after the financial and economic crisis of 1994, which resulted in the recognition that the pressure exerted on the Central Bank in recent years due to the growing public sector deficit made it difficult to conduct an effective monetary policy [Economic Report 1994, p. 96]. Therefore, as part of the stabilization measures, it was supposed to expand the Central Bank's control over the growth rate of the money supply. To this end, it was planned to limit the ability of the state finance system to use CBTR loans, making efforts to reorient the Treasury to loans from domestic and foreign markets, and thus turn the CBTR into a more autonomous structure. As a result, on April 21, 1994, the CSTDB Law of 1970 was amended to provide for a gradual reduction in the volume of CSTDB loans to the Treasury [G? kbudak, 1996, p.37].

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Table 2

Credit structure of the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (%)

Years

Share of loans to the public sector

Share of loans to private banks

Total

1983

58.0

42.0

100

1984

69.9

31.1

100

1985

76.4

23.6

100

1986

75.7

24.3

100

1987

70.8

29.2

100

1988

61.5

38.5

100

1989

58.3

42.2

100

1990

59.2

40.8

100

1991

81.7

18.3

100

1992

81.2

18.8

100

1993

82.4

17.6

100

1994

92,3

7.7

100

Compiled and calculated from: [Economic Report 1990, 1990, p. 241; Economic Report 1994, 1995, p. 48; Economic Report 2000, 2001, s. 73].

The transition to a policy of financial stabilization in the late 1990s was marked by a further strengthening of the status of the CBDT. One of the manifestations of this was that the head of the Central Bank, along with the State Minister (Deputy Prime Minister) responsible for economic development, was given a key role in the process of credit cooperation with the IMF, which began in 1999, and in the preparation of "Letters of Intent", which played the role of Turkey's economic development programs. In exchange for a more accurate approximation to the macroeconomic parameters laid down in the "Letters", Turkey received credit support from the Fund. The Central Bank of Russia was assigned the role of a guarantor of ensuring the declared parameters of monetary policy.

However, even in these years, Turkey did not officially consolidate the new status of the BSTDB. The fact is that until mid-2001, the main role in the bank's activities should have been occupied by currency regulation, since the dollar exchange rate was supposed to be used as a "nominal anchor" in the fight against inflation. In accordance with its pre-planned change during the year, the dynamics of all other macroeconomic indicators, primarily price growth, were calculated under the so-called creeping binding regime.

The advantage of exchange rate-based stabilization is the ability to reduce high inflation in a relatively short time. In addition, the high level of dollarization of the Turkish economy, which was a response to the usual depreciation of the national currency, made it preferable to stabilize on the basis of the exchange rate, rather than limiting the money supply. However, with a fixed exchange rate, even in the short term, the Central Bank's ability to conduct an independent monetary policy is significantly limited, since all its actions are aimed solely at maintaining the exchange rate declared for a given period of time. In connection with this problem, the Turkish researcher M. Altinkemer wrote: "In such a stabilization context, there is no independence of monetary policy, except perhaps a certain restriction on the supply of credit, since this policy is based on fiscal measures and the exchange rate" [Allinkemer, 1996, p.3].

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Under these circumstances, the official review of the status of the CBTR was postponed until the transition to a more flexible monetary policy and gradual easing of exchange rate regulation. After that, it was planned to finally restructure the activities of the CBTR in accordance with the principles that should, according to the Turkish financier G. Ercel, who headed in 1996-2001. The central bank of the country, to underpin the activities of the CSTDB in the modern economy:

"The government should provide its Central Bank with independence and independence in making decisions and choosing the tools to implement its policy. The central bank cannot assume financial responsibility for the Government. If the Government relies on the Central Bank to finance its deficits and manage its debt, the Central Bank will not be able to fulfill its main task-to ensure price stability " (Erçel, 1997, p. 22).

But the currency and financial crisis that broke out in 2001 led to the devaluation of the Turkish lira and its transition to free floating mode. Thus, the task of maintaining the national currency exchange rate was removed from the agenda, but at the same time the issue of the need for the Central Bank to switch to a restraining monetary policy became acute. As a result, at the end of April 2001, a new version of the Law on the Central Bank was adopted, which entered into force on May 4, 2001 [The current version of the law...]. According to it, the relationship between the Central Bank and the executive branch is limited only by the obligation of the former to provide the Council of Ministers twice a year with a report on the current and planned monetary policy. In addition, the CBTR should inform the planning and budget commissions of the Parliament about its activities twice a year, as well as explain the goals of its monetary policy and how to achieve them to the public. The new law does not provide for the Central Bank to provide loans to the Treasury or other state institutions.

The change in the structure of the CBTR loan portfolio after the withdrawal of loans to the public sector made it possible to significantly enhance the role of the discount rate as a tool for regulating the money market. The nature of the CBTR's activities in the securities market has also changed: the bank is no longer responsible for placing debt obligations of the Treasury and other entities of the state finance system on the primary market. The operations of the CBTR in the open market are limited exclusively to regulating the money supply in accordance with its own tasks.

The new version of the law allowed the CBTR to declare as the main goal of its activities ensuring and maintaining price stability. The first years of his new status were devoted to curbing inflation. The success achieved on this path (the average annual growth rate of consumer prices decreased from 45.0% in 2002 to 8.2% in 2005 [Ekonomik Rapor 2007, p. 142]) allowed the Central Bank of Russia to switch from 2006 to the policy of inflation targeting, which became one of the most common monetary policy models at the beginning of the XXI century. policies. The main advantage of the inflation targeting regime is that by keeping inflation at a given level, it creates an atmosphere of confidence in the national currency, thereby increasing the economy's resilience to external shocks.

After the transition to inflation targeting, the Central Bank of Russia had to repeatedly resort to a significant increase in the key overnight loan rate for that period. Thus, in mid-2006, the rate was raised by 425 basis points, and during 2008 - by 150 basis points, although it was preceded by a cumulative decrease of 225 points in late 2007 and early 2008 [Turkey 2007 Progress Report..., p. 27; Turkey 2008 Progress Report..., p. 31]. At the same time, the increase in the key rate did not cause any negative comments from the government of R. T. Erdogan, formed by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) since 2002, and the ex-

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European Commission experts 'assessment of Turkey's progress towards EU membership was positive as" a confirmation of the Central Bank's independence and a clear signal of its sustained commitment to fighting inflation " [Turkey 2008 Progress Report..., p. 31].

As for the results of this struggle, they turned out to be more modest than planned. The five percent inflation rate was chosen as the target for 2006, which seems to have been overly optimistic, given both the inflationary tradition deeply rooted in the Turkish economy and the fact that in December 2005 consumer price growth was just under 8% compared to December 2004. achieved: in December 2006, it was about 10%. It was not possible to do this in subsequent years either: the price growth rate was 8.5% in December 2007, and more than 10% at the end of 2008 [Ekonomik Rapor 2007, p. 142; Ekonomik Rapor 2010, p. 144].

Throughout 2009, the Central Bank actively used anti-crisis regulatory measures, reducing the key rate by 650 basis points during the year. As a result, the key rate dropped to an unprecedented low of 6.5% by the end of 2009 [Ekonomik Rapor 2009, p. 66]. At the same time, the Central Bank was pumping liquidity into the country's financial system.

During the post-crisis economic recovery, the focus was initially on keeping interest rates low. Since May 2010, the CBTR has switched to using the weekly REPO rate as its key interest rate, which dropped from 7% in the middle of the year to 6.5% by the end of the year [Ekonomik Rapor 2010, p. 76]. But since the subsequent economic growth was excessively based on the credit boom (in 2010 - 2011, the volume of consumer loans issued by Turkish banks increased annually by at least a third [Bankalarimiz 2009, s. 1 - 39; Banks in Turkey 2010, p. 1 - 39; Banks in Turkey 2011, p. 1 - 41]), since 2011 the bank's policy has become more complex.

On the one hand, the CBTR kept the key rate at a relatively low level: its value even decreased from 6.25% in the middle of the year to 5.75% by the end of the year [Ekonomik Rapor 2011, p. 207]. But at the same time, the interest difference on certain instruments, in particular overnight loans, has increased in order to make attracting liquidity more expensive for banks and less favorable conditions for its placement on deposits of the Central Bank of Russia. On the other hand, the Central Bank of Russia has increased reserve requirements for commercial banks. The goal of such a policy was to reduce the availability of credit for national banks, slow down further growth of its volumes and prevent overheating of the economy. This is how the Central Bank tried to respond to the main challenges that now lay not only in the danger of rising inflation, but also in the continuously increasing current account deficit of the balance of payments: in 2002, it amounted to $ 626 million, and in 2009, against the background of an active post-crisis recovery, it amounted to $ 48,561 million [Ekonomik Rapor 2008, s. 170; Ekonomik Rapor 2010, s. 144]. That is, the main demand for loans, which warmed up the Turkish economy, was met by the influx of foreign capital, which attracted relatively high interest rates and more or less stable development of the Turkish market.

The CBTR followed a similar policy throughout 2012, despite some easing by the end of the year. Nevertheless, although the average cost of borrowing for banks has decreased from 10% to 7% since July 2012, this is still more than two percentage points higher than the key rate, which has remained unchanged since 2011 [Turkey 2012 Progress Report..., p. 39]. In 2013, the key rate fell from 5.5% to 4.5% through two consecutive cuts in April and May [Ekonomik Rapor 2013, p. 90], which was aimed both at supporting the reduced growth rate of the national economy and preventing further strengthening of the national currency. Regarding the effectiveness of anti-inflationary policies

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Table 3

Turkey's GDP growth rate in 2003-2014 (%)

Year

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

Growth rate

5.3

9.4

8.4

6.9

4.5

1.1

-4.8

9.2

8.8

2.1

4.0

3.3

Источники: [Ekonomik Rapor 2007, s. 142; Ekonomik Rapor 2008, s. 169; Ekonomik Rapor 2013, s. 187].

In the post-crisis years, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation still failed to reach the target level of inflation. Thus, the inflation target for 2011 of 5.5% actually amounted to 10.5%. By December 2012, consumer price inflation was reduced to 6.2% compared to the previous year, but this indicator was higher than the target [Ekonomik Rapor 2013, p. 187].

In the context of this article, it is important not only to track the main twists and turns of the Central Bank's monetary policy and evaluate its results, but also to note the following circumstance. From the point of view of the current President of Turkey, R. T. Erdogan, who was not too experienced in economic and financial subtleties (until August 2014 - Prime Minister), complicating the CBTR policy and making it more diverse was perceived (if at all taken into account)by him as an internal matter of state financial officials, as long as the key rate (characteristically, it is officially called political in Turkey) showed a steady and correct, from the point of view of the Turkish leader, downward trend.

The beginnings of his conflict with the Central Bank's leadership were revealed only at the beginning of 2014. Following the devaluation of the Turkish lira (from March 2013 to September 2014, the effective exchange rate of the lira fell by 15%) and another attempt by the Central Bank to support the national currency, which cost it a loss of more than $ 3 billion. On January 28, 2014, the Central Bank of Turkey decided to raise the key rate more than twice to 10% [Milliyet. 30.01.2014]. R. T. Erdogan did not hide his negative attitude to this decision: "I wanted you to know that today, as before, I am against raising interest rates," - he stated [MK-Turkey. 29.01.2014]. The Prime Minister's apparent sensitivity to the issue of interest rates is obviously related to Turkey's entry into a less favorable period of economic development, when GDP growth rates, although still positive, have significantly decreased compared to the pre-crisis period or the period of rapid post-crisis recovery (%) (see Table 3).

But at that time, R. T. Erdogan still managed to show enough self-control to accept the independence of the Central Bank and recognize its right to make such decisions, although he stressed that the blame for the consequences (lower growth rates) lies with the Central Bank, and the decision itself is the result of the victory of the "interest lobby" (a certain force, trying to play against the interests of Turkey and interested in extracting speculative super-profits from high interest rates, as it managed to do throughout the 1990s, read before the ruling AKP came to power).

The Central Bank of Russia announced its intention to keep interest rates at a higher level until inflation declines. The fact is that the formal reason for the Central Bank's decision was not so much the devaluation of the lira, but its contribution to the further growth of inflation, which in December 2013 amounted to 7.4% compared to December last year [Ekonomik Rapor 2013, p. 187]. This indicator was not only ahead of the Central Bank's target inflation rate of 5%, but also went beyond the acceptable deviation range of 2 percentage points. Although the situation did not look more critical than in previous years, the devaluation of the lira significantly raised inflation expectations.

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Table 4

Level of utilization of production capacities for the production of investment goods, 2009-2013 (%)

Year

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

Production capacity utilization

57.7

68.8

74.9

72.3

74.3

Источник: [Ekonomik Rapor 2011, s. 176; Ekonomik Rapor 2013, s. 48].

The Central Bank's decision is also supported by factors that indicate not so much a cyclical as a structural slowdown in the growth of the Turkish economy, similar to that which, according to the Bank of Russia's management, is taking place in the Russian economy (see in detail: [Yudaeva, 2014, pp. 4-12]). In a situation of such a slowdown, monetary stimulus "will be harmful, as it will cause stagflation, that is, it will accelerate inflation without accelerating economic growth" [Yudaeva, 2014, p. 5]. The main sign of a structural slowdown is a drop in growth rates against the background of high capacity utilization, which is evidence of the need for reforms in the production sector. As for the situation in Turkey, the decline in growth rates occurs at a fairly high level of capacity utilization, significantly exceeding the indicators of the crisis in 2009 (see Table 4).

However, a little later, in May 2014, an acute stage of conflict between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the head of the Central Bank of Turkey, Erdem Basci, began, oddly enough, after the Central Bank announced a reduction in the key rate by 50 basis points, or 0.5%. The prime minister's dissatisfaction was caused by too small, in his opinion, the measure of its reduction. In turn, E. Baschi, obviously, attached an exclusively political character to the rate cut, trying to calm the dissatisfaction of the prime minister, who in one of his public speeches in April 2014 stated the need to reduce it. As one economic observer wrote, "everyone knows that at this level of inflation, the Central Bank should not lower the rate, but despite this, in order to calm the Prime Minister's anger, it did lower it" [Hurriyet, 27.05.2014]. But the Prime Minister was not satisfied with the compromise:

"You suddenly raised the rate by 5%, now come and lower it by half a percent. Are you kidding me? ...What do you want to achieve with a half percent reduction? This is unacceptable. I'm told: "But this is interference in the affairs of the Central Bank." Well, let there be an intervention. If I am the prime Minister of this country, then I must express my beliefs, " R. T. Erdogan said in an interview with the Sabah newspaper on May 26, 2014 [Sabah, 26.05.2014].

But what are his beliefs? Commenting on the situation around the key interest rate, in the already mentioned interview, Erdogan expressed them fully and clearly. Their content is very interesting:

"I see high interest rates as the main obstacle to investment in my country. I consider high interest rates to be the main reason for inflation. On this issue, my understanding is exactly that. In the interest-inflation link, interest is the cause, and inflation is the result. ..The central bank is constantly revising the [inflation target]... Linking it to the exchange rate, in my opinion, is another big mistake. What's the connection? The rate is one thing, the percentage is another. Where are the investment application points today? Look at the US, what percentage is there. Look at Japan, the percentage is negative. Look at Israel. And here, including commission fees, 15-17 percent. ...This is a cause for regret, it is a sin. Is it possible to invest in such a country? If local capital is not invested in investment projects, then this is the reason" [Sabah, 26.05.2014].

The Prime Minister's views were further clarified and developed a day later during a speech at a meeting of the AKP parliamentary group: "You [the Central Bank] until today

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Have you ever managed to keep the declared inflation rate down? You review it all the time. And interest rates behave the same way [Let's say they rose by 5 points, and inflation immediately jumped]. But that's enough. We have to say this. Interest is the cause, inflation is the effect "[Sabah, 28.05.2014].

It seems that Erdogan's "but enough is enough" also referred to the independence of the Central Bank. At a meeting of the AKP parliamentary group, Erdogan said::

"It turns out that it [the Central Bank] is independent... But the nation's account is ultimately given by us. I've already told them that. But they continue to adhere to a different understanding... We are responsible for balancing the [investment] climate. This interest rate is high. We need to think about reducing it to increase real investment. I have one more thing to say. We are politicians, we are responsible to the people, the Central Bank management is responsible only to itself... " [Hürriyet, 28.05.2014].

In his assessments, R. T. Erdogan linked the independent nature of the Central Bank's activities with the narrowness of its responsibility, accusing it of neglecting the economic interests of the nation and thus calling into question the expediency of maintaining the status of the Central Bank.

As for Erdogan's economic views, they caused nothing but tired bewilderment among opposition observers, reminders of the monetary origin of inflation, due to which the increase in interest rates is the result of higher inflation, comments that the prime minister's economic initiatives should be regarded as "an invitation to the national economy to crisis" and that there should be no need to In order to understand that in a country with a significant current account deficit, i.e. with a low level of national savings, a negative interest rate in real terms will not contribute to their growth (Hürriyet, 27.05.2014; Radikal, 28.05.2014).

Most analysts have linked R. T. Erdogan's demarche regarding the discount rate to the upcoming presidential elections [Haber Turk, 27.05.2014]. However, even after becoming the head of the Republic of Turkey, Erdogan did not abandon this issue, although he switched to the tactic of indirectly influencing its solution. According to the opposition newspaper "Jumhuriyet", in October 2014, circles close to the government initiated a discussion on the feasibility of introducing amendments to the law on the CBTR, adding to the list of its priority tasks the task of maintaining economic growth. Western financial analysts interviewed by correspondents of the newspaper, for example, analyst of Standard Bank T. Ash, UBS Bank J. Abramovich. Dennis, expressed in the key that, since the CBTR over the past two years does not cope with its main task-to keep inflation at the target level, then burdening it with additional functions is doomed to failure. In their opinion, it is impossible to draw a parallel between the activities of the CSTD and, for example, the US Federal Reserve or central banks of other developed countries, whose task is to maintain employment levels, since these countries are not fighting high inflation, and some are even threatened with deflation. At the same time, J. Dennis stressed that, firstly, from the point of view of international investors, such an initiative calls into question the already shaken independent status of the CBDT, and, secondly, not all the problems of the economy can be solved with a single monetary policy [Cumhuriyet, 19.10.2014].

A. Davutoglu, who headed the government after the presidential election, at the 23rd special meeting of the Justice and Development Party held in November 2014, dedicated to analyzing the current situation, in his opening speech, in full accordance with the logic of the president, said, referring to the reduction in the share of public debt servicing payments in the budget: "I believe that with the view of maintaining the political Given the stability in Turkey and rising prices in the external market, it is time for the Central Bank to review interest rates" [Davutoglu, 2014].

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What is the reason for such an insistent desire of the country's elite to reduce interest rates? Here, it is probably legitimate to refer to the fact that the problem of interest occupies a very important place in the national version of the theory of Islamic economics that has developed in Turkey and which is close to the leaders and ideological supporters of the pro-Islamic Justice and Development Party. This version is based on the classical rejection of the loan interest instrument for the Islamic economy - the riba ban. The author of the ideological and, until a certain time, political predecessor of R. T. Erdogan, N. Erbakan, wrote the book" A Just Economic Order " (Adil Duzeri). It described the country's economic system at that time as a" slave order", affected by five harmful microbes, primarily a high percentage [Urazova, 2000, p.228].

Turkish economist Kh was more specific about the role of interest rates in a properly developing economy. Bash in the work "Model of the national economy" [Bash, 2011]. Noting that neither capitalism nor socialism can bring happiness to humanity, the author suggests an alternative - a model of the national economy, in which he first of all proposes to abandon the false premise of limited economic resources and tries to create a science about meeting the limited needs of a person with unlimited resources. Unlimited resources are also unlimited resources for economic growth, such as the national currency, and since the resource is unlimited, its value is zero, i.e. access to this currency should be unlimited and interest-free:

"Countries that want to achieve economic recovery, of course, need capital for this recovery. Until now, these countries have met this need not by issuing their national currency,but by attracting interest-bearing foreign currency. We hear from [International credit institutions] that production financed by the national currency creates inflation, but the same production financed by expensive interest-bearing foreign currency will lead to the country's economic growth. Unfortunately, today we are faced with such meaningless logic... For this reason, in our economic model, we give freedom to the national currency, which has no value (percentage), and get rid of dependence on global economic forces" [Bash, 2011, p. 55].

The author proceeds from the premise that it is necessary to achieve a balance between production and consumption. Therefore, he concludes that supporting consumption is a necessary condition for sustainable and constant economic growth, and monetary policy should be aimed at increasing household incomes to the "beginning of the saving point" [Bash, 2011, p.83, 87]. Then comes the turn of production. It is proposed to "use money (of which there is a lot and which costs nothing. - N. U.) as a driving force, use labor and thus stimulate production, balancing emissions" [Bash, 2011, p. 90]. As for the danger of inflation, it will be neutralized in the short term by a fuller utilization of existing capacities, and in the medium term-as additional money is invested in production.

In essence, we are talking about the much-loved idea of the Turkish elite of infinitely long and consistently effective use of stimulating monetary policy, the utopian nature of which has been repeatedly confirmed by the country's own experience. But in the reasoning of H. Bash in the framework of this article, it is especially important to believe in the unlimited and gratuitous availability of the national currency (credit) within the framework of the national economy model, which, apparently, can be the source of Erdogan's passionate desire to flood the national economy with cheap money, of course, without any negative consequences.

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It is impossible not to notice the similarity of the discourse around raising the key rate against the background of the devaluation of the national currency in Turkey during 2014 and in Russia, but at the end of the same year, especially after the Bank of Russia sharply raised the key rate to 17%. There was no shortage of negative assessments in the Russian media of the Central Bank's actions as stifling the growth opportunities of the national economy, which was already in a pre-crisis state. Opponents of the Bank of Russia's actions, describing its policy as inadequate to the objectives of economic growth, guided by monetarist dogmas and based on erroneous ideas about the relationship between money issuance and inflation, called for a hasty deployment of long-term refinancing mechanisms for Russian borrowers, similar to those used in Europe and the United States (see, for example, [Glazyev, 2014, p. 14-15]).

Given the similarity of stories about central banks in two countries with growing markets (which are in the process of market transformation), it seems legitimate to talk about the manifestation in both cases during the reform of the system of "transition problems of both properties of the transition era and the mechanism of transition of society from one quality to another" [Akimov, Yakovlev, 2012, p. 177]. Such mechanisms include changing the status of national central banks, but, as can be seen, in a state of transition, i.e. incomplete changes, under certain circumstances, attempts to level the newfound independent status are also possible.

In Turkey, following the May scandal, the Central Bank conducted two more stages of reducing the key rate, and by July 2014 it was 8.25%. On January 21, 2015, the official website of the Central Bank announced another rate cut by 50 basis points to 7.75%) [Official website of the Central Bank]. According to the CBTR report, consumer prices increased by 8.9% in 2014 [Enflasyon Raporu 2014-IV, p. 27]. The nominal rate may still seem excessive to the president, but in reality the Central Bank is pumping liquidity into the banking system at an interest rate whose real level is close to zero or has slightly negative values, which fuels a further increase in inflation expectations. The head of the CBTR acknowledged in an interview that the bank mainly uses such a tool as selling currency in order to ensure the stability of the lira exchange rate without resorting to raising the interest rate.

Since February 2014, the CBTR has held daily auctions for the sale of $ 50 million, and since the end of April, the volume of sales has decreased to $ 40 million per day [MK-Turkey, 28.04.2014]. At the same time, the Central Bank's interest rate policy did not significantly help economic growth, which amounted to about 3% at the end of the year [Haber Bülteni, 10 Aralik 2014]. The European Commission's 2014 report on Turkey noted:

"Inflation has increased significantly and is significantly ahead of the target. The Central Bank continues to work towards several goals, implementing complex and far-from-traditional monetary policies that harm transparency and predictability. If you focus on the primary task - price stability-you need to achieve the Central Bank's inflation target" [Turkey 2014 Progress Report..., p. 22].

It seems that we have received yet another confirmation that in a situation of crisis or growing tension in the national economy, which is in a situation of transition as a stage of modernization, it is possible to replace, probably temporarily, the created transition institutions with their imitations. It is important to ask whether the national economy will be able to stay in the transformation algorithm or whether it will be more comfortable to return to the usual system of large-scale state regulation with the final rebirth of transition institutions, i.e. with the loss of their original essence. The latter scenario seems unlikely, as V. Mau and A. Ulyukayev's warning that the classical principles of macroeconomics (low inflation and budget deficits, trade liberalization, and deregulation) remain relevant conditions for sustainable growth in the Russian economy seems relevant.

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in the long - term perspective for emerging market countries, despite the fact that unconventional monetary and fiscal policies in developed countries do not lead to an increase in inflation: "The situation in developing countries is much less straightforward: the inflationary background is higher, the economy's response to an increase in the money supply is less flexible... Therefore, it is dangerous for developing countries to conclude that it is appropriate to abandon the basic principles of the Washington Consensus, that is, to remove issues of macroeconomic stability from the agenda... "[Uia, Ulyukayev, 2014].

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