Pre-registration
Erdogan's "unorthodox" doctrine 2021-2023 — repeated TCMB rate cuts during accelerating inflation under his Islamist-finance theory that high rates cause inflation — produced a textbook monetary-policy failure: lira collapse, inflation-expectations de-anchoring, and CPI peaking above 85% YoY before the post-election 2023 reversal under Erkan/Karahan brought rates from 8.5% to 50% and slowly re-anchored expectations.
Falsification criterion — what would disprove this
This hypothesis is considered falsified if:
Multi-metric checklist on Turkey 2021-09 (when Sahap Kavcioglu began aggressive cuts) to 2024-12. SUPPORTED if >=4 of 5 metrics meet thresholds; REFUTED if <=2 do. Each metric independently sourced (TCMB, TUIK, FRED, OECD) capturing different layers of the textbook FX-monetary-failure pattern.
formal test & threshold
test: turkey_unorthodox_doctrine_2021_2024_multi_metric threshold: >=4/5 supports; <=2/5 refutes
Method
- Template
multi_metric_checklist- Clustering
none- Sample
- 1 countries · 2018 – 2024
- Evidence type
- canonical_case_multi_metric
Canonical-case multi-metric — single-country natural experiment on explicit policy doctrine. Pattern-match across FX, CPI, real rate, post-reversal disinflation, and reserves rather than single coefficient. Pre-registered metric thresholds sized to require extreme orthodox-failure pattern.
Data
| Variable | Source | Transform |
|---|---|---|
cpi_inflation_yoy outcome | tuik:cpi_yoy_headlinetier 2 | pct_change_yoy |
try_usd_exchange_rate outcome | fred:DEXTUUStier 1 | log |
tcmb_policy_rate outcome | tcmb:one_week_repotier 2 | level |
tcmb_net_reserves_ex_swaps outcome | tcmb:international_reserves_net_ex_swapstier 2 | level |
real_gdp_growth outcome | world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZGtier 2 imf:NGDP_RPCHtier 2 | pct_change_yoy |
erdogan_unorthodox_regime treatment | constructed:1 from 2021-09-23 (first Kavcioglu cut) to 2023-06-21 (Erkan first hike)tier 5 | indicator |
post_reversal_indicator treatment | constructed:1 from 2023-06-22 onwardtier 5 | indicator |
oil_price_brent control | imf_pcps:POILBREtier 1 | log_diff |
em_currencies_index control | fred:DTWEXEMEGStier 1 | log |
● ready · ● pending · ● reconstruct-needed
Detailed result card
Result card — turkey_fx_erdogan_unorthodox_inflation_response_2021_2024
Verdict: inconclusive (data gaps)
Reason: 0 metrics met, 5 pending; 4 more need resolution
Pre-registered rule: SUPPORT if >= 4 of 5 metrics met; REFUTE if <= 2 met (impossible to hit support).
Counts: 0 MET · 0 NOT_MET · 5 PENDING_DATA · 0 PENDING_EVAL
Primary country: TUR
Metric-by-metric
| # | Metric | Status | Observed | Threshold | Notes |
|---|---|:---:|---:|---|---|
| 1 | lira_dollar_depreciation_2021_2023 | PENDING_DATA | | >60% depreciation in TRY/USD over the window | No usable vintage for: fred:DEXTUUS |
| 2 | cpi_inflation_peak_2022 | PENDING_DATA | | >75% YoY peak | No usable vintage for: tuik:cpi_yoy_headline |
| 3 | tcmb_policy_rate_minus_cpi_real_rate_trough | PENDING_DATA | | <-50pp at trough | No usable vintage for: tcmb:one_week_repo, tuik:cpi_yoy_headline |
| 4 | post_reversal_disinflation_2024 | PENDING_DATA | | >25pp decline in CPI YoY peak-to-2024-12 | No usable vintage for: tuik:cpi_yoy_headline |
| 5 | fx_reserves_decline_swaps | PENDING_DATA | | net reserves ex-swaps below -50bn USD at trough | No usable vintage for: tcmb:international_reserves_net_ex_swaps |
Claim
Erdogan's "unorthodox" doctrine 2021-2023 — repeated TCMB rate cuts during accelerating inflation under his Islamist-finance theory that high rates cause inflation — produced a textbook monetary-policy failure: lira collapse, inflation-expectations de-anchoring, and CPI peaking above 85% YoY before the post-election 2023 reversal under Erkan/Karahan brought rates from 8.5% to 50% and slowly re-anchored expectations.
Interpretation
Verdict is inconclusive (data gaps) — 5 metric(s) cannot be evaluated because the underlying data source is not yet in the vintages pipeline, and 0 metric(s) have data but a threshold expression the auto-evaluator does not recognise (complex conditions, discrete event counts, cross-country gaps). Close these gaps then re-run.
Steelman live concerns
See hypotheses/steelman/turkey_fx_erdogan_unorthodox_inflation_response_2021_2024.md for the strongest opposing arguments. Canonical-case multi-metric evidence is a pattern match, not a causal identification — the result card should be read as 'outcome trajectory matches the predicted pattern to degree X' rather than 'policy P caused the outcome'.
Provenance
Vintages pinned in manifest.yaml. Full per-metric diagnostics in diagnostics.json. Machine-readable results in metric_results.parquet.
Strongest opposing argument
Every hypothesis ships with its charitable opposing argument. The framework earns credibility by handling objections at their strongest, not weakest.
Notes
Canonical-case multi-metric on an explicit policy doctrine that mainstream macro predicts will fail. Provides a clean test against the heterodox claim that high rates can be inflationary via cost-channel transmission in production-cost-pass-through-heavy economies.