Twin Deficit and Macroeconomic Indicators in Emerging Economies: A Comparative Study of Iran and Turkey

The study examines the existence of twin deficit in two emerging economies (Turkey and Iran) and also investigates the relation of twin deficit with specific macroeconomic indicators such as the GDP, money supply, foreign direct investment, and the interest rate both in short and long-run periods. The twin-deficit concept refers to a situation where the current account deficit and budget deficits exist in the same corresponding period of an economy. This study employs the Bound Test Autoregressive lag distributed (ARDL) model on time-series quarterly secondary data of Turkey and Iran from 1992 to 2019. The stationarity of variables has been ensured through the Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test at the level and the first difference. The results reveal the existence of a twin deficit in both the short and long-run periods only in Iran. Its existence could not be observed in the Turkish economy. The findings suggest a positive relationship between twin deficit and GDP, and a negative relationship between twin deficit and FDI and M2. At the same time, the relationship of the twin deficit with interest rate could not be found in the Iranian economy. The findings may be helpful for economic managers of both countries in executing their economic policies.