Turkey vs Argentina Money Supply: Close on the Year, Far Apart on the Decade
Argentina’s broad money supply grew 40.2% over the past year (YoY, as of 2026-01). Turkey’s grew 37.7% over the same window (YoY, as of 2026-02) — nearly tied. Over the past decade, the gap widens sharply: Argentina’s 10-year CAGR is 62.8% against Turkey’s 36.4%, a 1.7x difference. On the year the two currencies sit 2.5 points apart. On the decade, 26.4. Turkey (officially Türkiye) and Argentina both hold series that start in 1960, and both were last observed in the first quarter of 2026. This isn’t a ranking of which country is richer. It’s two live currency crises, measured the same way, at two time horizons that don’t agree.
Specs — broad money, Turkey vs. Argentina (USD-normalized)
| Turkey | Argentina | |
|---|---|---|
| Latest value (USD) | $708.44B | $175.32B |
| Frequency | Annual to 2000, monthly from 2001-12 | Annual to 2008, monthly from 2010-01 |
| Observation date | 2026-02 | 2026-01 |
| Series start | 1960 (332 obs.) | 1960 (242 obs., no 2009) |
| Currency conversion | World Bank PA.NUS.FCRF, period-average annual rate | World Bank PA.NUS.FCRF, period-average annual rate |
| Source | IMF MFS_MA/BM_MAI, World Bank annual backfill | IMF MFS_MA/BM_MAI, World Bank annual backfill |
| YoY growth | 37.7% | 40.2% |
| 10-year CAGR | 36.4% | 62.8% |
| Doubling time at the 10-year rate | 2.2 years | 1.4 years |
Two limits, stated before the numbers get used. Neither series is monthly for its whole length: the early decades are World Bank annual figures, and Argentina carries no 2009 observation. And both USD levels convert at the World Bank’s official period-average rate, which does not track a parallel exchange rate where one runs. Growth is dimensionless. So are CAGR and doubling time. The whole argument below rests on those, not on the dollar column.
This isn’t a wealth ranking
A Turkey vs Argentina money supply comparison keeps pulling toward the same wrong question: which country is richer. That isn’t what a faster-growing money supply measures. Broad money is the bank-held, liquid slice of an economy — cash, checking balances, savings, short-term deposits. It has nothing to say about GDP, real wages or living standards, and we don’t track any of those. What it does measure, cleanly, is how fast each central bank expands the currency in circulation. Turkey and Argentina both do that quickly. Which one is “richer” isn’t the finding here. How differently “quickly” looks, depending on which window you use, is.
The metric trap, live
Look at the past year alone, and Turkey and Argentina are nearly tied: 37.7% YoY against 40.2%, a gap of 2.5 percentage points. Look at the past decade, and Argentina pulls well ahead: 62.8% CAGR against 36.4%, a 26.4-point gap and a 1.7x ratio. Both readings are correct. They answer different questions. YoY captures the last twelve months. 10-year CAGR captures the whole decade, smoothing Argentina’s sharper recent swings — including a stretch in 2023-24 when its rate ran hotter than today’s — into one average. Quote Argentina’s YoY figure as its “10-year rate,” or the reverse, and the sentence is wrong even though every number in it is real. Name the metric with the number, every time.
The chart above sets both metrics side by side for each country — YoY and 10-year CAGR as paired bars — so the near-tie on one axis and the wide gap on the other are visible without reading the table.
Neither is in hyperinflation
Phillip Cagan’s classic definition of hyperinflation is price inflation above 50% in a single month. Compounded for a year, we calculate that’s roughly 12,875% — more than two orders of magnitude above either country’s money-supply growth. Argentina’s 62.8% CAGR and Turkey’s 36.4% both sit far under that mark. Read that as a money-supply proxy, not as a Cagan test. Cagan’s threshold is a price-inflation threshold, and we hold no CPI series. Money-supply growth and price inflation are different measurements, and this site tracks only the former. But the gap is wide enough that neither number here describes hyperinflation, only rapid, ongoing currency dilution. Turkey’s 2021 lira deposit-guarantee scheme drew exactly this warning on Reddit at the time: continued money creation would “debase the currency even further” (u/EmperorNoodles, r/wallstreetbets, 1,907 upvotes, 2021-12-21). Four years later, the currency is still diluting — just not at a hyperinflationary pace by Cagan’s own test.
Read the full history
Turkey’s money supply and Argentina’s each carry the complete 1960-onward series behind these numbers. Both rank among the fastest six of 159 economies we track: Argentina 3rd (62.8%), Turkey 6th (36.4%), each on a full ten-year CAGR window. The ranks above them are not all measured over the same span. TradingEconomics holds a single-country page for each and no side-by-side view: 28.14T TRY for Turkey (July 2026) and 88.05T ARS for Argentina (May 2026), checked 2026-08. Those are national M2; ours is the IMF’s harmonised broad money, defined more widely, so the two sets of levels are not interchangeable. Full sourcing and the FX method: methodology.
FAQ
Is Turkey in hyperinflation?
No, not by the standard economic definition (Cagan, 1956: price inflation over 50% in a single month). Turkey’s money-supply growth is 36.4% a year (10-year CAGR, as of 2026-02) — fast, but nowhere near that order of magnitude. We hold no CPI series to test price inflation directly.
Why do Turkey and Argentina look so different depending on the metric?
Because YoY and 10-year CAGR measure different windows. Over the last year, they’re close: 37.7% against 40.2%. Over the last decade, Argentina’s average pulls far ahead: 62.8% against 36.4%. Neither number is wrong — they answer different questions.