Türkiye Otomotiv Dış Ticaretinin Belirleyicileri: 2009-2017 Dönemine İlişkin Ampirik Bulgular

Abstract

The role of the Turkey's automotive industry in foreign trade has increased as the Turkey's economy has opened to world markets in the last thirty years. After the global financial crisis in 2008, Turkey's automotive foreign trade increased both as a partner country and by volume. Thus, it is important to analyze Turkey's automotive foreign trade determinants. In fact, the aim of the study is to analyze the determinants of Turkey's automotive foreign trade within the framework of the panel data model. In this context, Turkey's automotive exports, imports and foreign trade were estimated in three separate equations. The analysis was applied for the top 20 countries in Turkey's automotive foreign trade in the period 2009-2017. The findings of the three equations are different from each other. Per capita GDP, population, distance and the exchange rate are the most important determinants of Turkey's automotive exports for the six different variables. However, no significant relationship has been found between custom union proxy variable and Turkey's automotive exports. For the trade model of Turkey's automotive industry, these variables are statistically significant except for per capita GDP. Production capacity variable is not statistically significant both for export and trade equations. For the determinants of the automotive import function, all of the explanatory variables-which are per capita GDP ratio, population, distance, customs union, production capacity and exchange rate-are statistically significant. However, contrary to the expectations, the variable of distance affects Turkey's automotive imports positively.