The impact of maritime transport costs on export and import rates by transport modes in Turkey

This study aims to determine the impact of price changes in maritime transport, which is one of the most important elements in international trade, on the monetary rate of transport mode usage of Turkey in export and import activities. The maritime transport cost items used are represented by China Containerized Freight Index (CCFI), Shanghai Containerized Freight Index (SCFI) and Istanbul Freight Index (ISTFIX). Asymmetric causality analysis is used to determine the causal relationships between the variables, which allows to determine causalities between the shocks by separating them as positive and negative. The data set used in this study covers the periods between November 2010 and July 2018 and consists of 93 monthly observations. According to the results obtained, there are significant asymmetric causalities from maritime transport costs to all modes of transport except for railway. These results play a complementary role in the related literature by providing an econometric determination of the importance of transportation costs in transportation mode selection decisions.