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Turkey : Economic Reforms, Living Standards and Social Welfare Study

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2000-01-27
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2000-01-27
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As Turkey faces the 21st century, it must confront a series of critical policy questions: Can it continue to make progress in the fight against poverty? Is it possible to accelerate this improvement, which given Turkish growth rates, has been disappointing? What needs to be done to ensure that GDP growth pays off in terms of broad-based increases in employment and wages? Is it realistic to envision a future growth path in which 40 percent of employment remains in the agriculture sector? Can the widening of disparities between regions somehow be reversed? This report recommends the key elements of a strategy to improve living standards and reduce poverty include: 1) Provide a macroeconomic environment that is conducive to growth and price stability. 2) Remove biases against employment creation outside of agriculture. 3) Facilitate the outflow of resources from agriculture and provide a basis for productivity growth in the sector. 4) Invest in education, and especially in that or poor children. 5) Reallocate Government expenditures so that they are better targeted to the economically vulnerable.
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World Bank. 2000. Turkey : Economic Reforms, Living Standards and Social Welfare Study. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/15138 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.
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