Abstract:

It is assumed that the performances of the countries will give the closest results to their potential performances in the periods of the economy away from the macro crises. Despite this assumption, it is particularly important to see what trend sustained performances will follow in scenarios involving crises. It is assumed that the performances of the countries will give the closest results to their potential performances in the periods of the economy away from the macro crises. Objective: In the study, it was aimed to determine the Emerging Markets Mix (EM2-18) of 41 countries selected from developing countries based on their relative macroeconomic performances, which is formed from indicators of growth rate, inflation rate, unemployment rate, interest rate, and exchange rate in 2015-2019 and 2016-2020 periods. In this framework, the data of selected countries for the 2015-2019 period before the global pandemic crisis that emerged in 2020 and the 2016-2020 period, including the crisis, were analysed. In addition, budget deficit / GDP, current account deficit / GDP, and public debt stock / GDP ratios of Emerging Markets Mix countries in the analysed periods are considered as side effects of macroeconomic performance. Method: In the study, Multi-Criteria Decision Making Techniques were used to rank the macroeconomic performance by considering the annual and five-year averages of the countries. When the new year is added, the first year of the five-year period is removed. The index was created by weighting the macroeconomic performance indicators with the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), and then the rankings of the countries were determined using the TOPSIS model. Findings: While the top 18 out of 41 countries are determined as the countries that make up the Emerging Markets Mix since they have relatively better macroeconomic performance, others are considered as candidate countries that can enter this Mix. Since the macroeconomic performance analysis of the model used in the study takes into account the annual and five-year averages of the past five-year indicators, it also points to the direct and indirect results of the preferences and priorities of public authorities in medium-term processes. The changes in the current account deficit, budget deficit and high public debt stock indicators reflect an important feature of the analysis that stands out in this context. The geographical distribution of the selected countries has been designed to include every region of the world and it has been observed that high-performance countries generally cluster in the Asian continent. Originality: With the approach used in the study, the macroeconomic performance analysis in the literature is considered together with the macroeconomic stability perspective and a different perspective is created by adding the political economy dimension to this approach. Such an approach makes it possible to produce macroeconomic data and information sets that national and global economic stakeholders can use in decision-making and implementation processes. In the subsequent applications of the model, the possible countries of the Emerging Markets Mix in the next year will be determined by using the annual estimates of the indicators as well as the realised data.

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