At the turn of the century the Turkish economy was in need of an urgent stabilization in order to halt a treacherous process of inflation, unsustainable public debt accumulation, and increasing financial fragility, resulting from irresponsible policies and lack of fiscal discipline that had been endemic since the early 1980s. The stabilization program launched with support from the IMF has, however, failed to deliver its promises, plunging the economy into an unprecedented recession, largely because of serious shortcomings in its design as well as in crisis intervention which appears to have drawn no useful lessons from recent crises in emerging markets.