It’s a long way to Copenhagen? Turkey’s Membership of and Convergence with the European Union

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Turkey, which officially started negotiations for EU membership in October 2005, currently has a lower per capita income than that of any of the EU-25 countries – about at the level of Romania and Macedonia. With the right institutions and policies, Willem Buiter, Professor of European Political Economy at the European Institute of the London School of Economics and Political Science, argues that Turkey could become a true tiger economy. But with the institutions and policies of the second half of the 20th century, it could end up a mangy cat instead of a tiger. This policy brief is motivated by some rather optimistic official reports and especially by the World Bank’s recent Country Economic Memorandum for Turkey, Promoting Sustained Growth and Convergence with the European Union.