Foreign Direct Investment in Perspective: Evidence from Mergers and Acquisitions in the Turkish Banking Sector

Turkey has been a leading example of reform-driven growth acceleration in the period 2001–2011. The turning point in the revival of the Turkish economy could be identified as the period starting after 2002. The collapse of a vicious cycle of serious failures of macroeconomic policy, largely characterized by first, a vast, ineffective public sector that was accumulating public deficits, which in turn were monetized through a centrally controlled and insolvent banking sector, and second, prolonged political uncertainty, culminated in the financial and economic crisis of 2000–2001. This crisis was the worst so far, and of such magnitude as to cause a wave of reforms (Kontakos, 2010).