Infrastructure and the international export performance of Turkish regions

We estimate the Anderson and van Wincoop model of trade by using the data on the bilateral export fl ows from 26 Turkish regions to 180 countries for the years 2002 through to 2010. Regional transportation and communication infrastructure capacity, the positioning of point infrastructure in a region, and geography are explicitly accounted for. Our results highlight that land infrastructure, air transport capacity, and private maritime infrastructure presence, together with the distance of regional economies to exit nodes such as ports and airports, are important determinants of export performance. Based on our preferred regression where multilateral resistance terms are accounted for, we estimate that increases in the current land infrastructure, air transport capacity, and number of private ports of 1 per cent increases exports approximately by 0.38 per cent, 0.14 per cent, and 0.045 per cent respectively.

Keywords: Infrastructure, trade, regions, transportation costs.

JEL Classification: F14, O18, O24, R10, R40, R58.