With maverick policies, Turkey cannot hope to bring down prices

AT LEAST BY comparison with last year’s disaster, when it crashed by 44% against the dollar, Turkey’s lira has had a good run of late. Since January the currency has lost only 4% of its dollar value. Part of the reason is a scheme to protect lira deposits against swings in the exchange rate, which the government introduced in December, and which has suppressed demand for hard currency. Another factor is a series of interventions in currency markets by Turkey’s central bank. The latest of these came on February 22nd, when the bank reportedly sold about $1bn in foreign reserves, helping the currency absorb some of the shock waves from the run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.