The Economy of Turkey in the Late Ottoman and Early Republican Periods, 1907-1939: A Quantitative Comparision

This study is an attempt to compare the economy of the Turkish Republic between 1923 and 1939, with that of the Ottoman Empire between 1907 and 1914, in terms of national income, agriculture, industry and foreign trade. The expected contribution of the study to the relevant literature is to search for continuity between these two periods, challenging the standard republican discourse which declares complete rupture.

The main conclusion of this thesis is that the overestimated economic performance of the early-republican period, especially in the 1930s, was, to a significant extent, a recovery of the late-Ottoman economic performance. Although the overall economy inherited by the Turkish Republic in 1923 was truly handicapped, the general quality of underdevelopment of the Ottoman economy had been exacerbated by the prolonged wars of the period.