The Importance of Railroad Freight Transportation and Its Correlation to Economic Growth: An Empirical Study on Turkey

Abstract

In this study, the railroad freight transportation and economic growth relationship in Turkey was examined using the econometric analysis for the period of 1984-2017. As a result of the econometric analysis, it was found that there is no causal relationship between railroad freight transportation and economic growth in the long run, while there is a causality relationship from railroad freight transportation to economic growth in the short run. In addition to causality tests, an econometric model was created using stationary series, and the OLS method was applied for this model. According to this estimation result, an increase in railroad freight transportation increases economic growth. When this result obtained from the OLS estimation and the findings obtained from the Granger causality test are evaluated altogether, it can be stated that an increase in railroad freight transportation accelerates economic growth in the short run in Turkey.