Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has repeatedly meddled in the central bank’s activities and over the years traders have dumped the lira.
Turkey’s currency tumbled on Monday after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan fired the head of the central bank, who had been in the job just four months and had pursued policies aimed at taming inflation. The Turkish lira plunged 10 percent against the U.S. dollar. Wall Street stock futures were higher, and stock market indexes were mixed in Europe in Asia. The removal of Turkey’s central bank chief, Naci Agbal, signals a return to the unorthodox policies that Mr. Erdogan has long favored, such as cutting interest rates to lower inflation, but which most economists regard as counterproductive.
