The effects of Customs Union and the European Union acquis on Turkish foreign trade: A comparative study

The aim of this study is to reveal the changes occurred by Customs Union membership and regulations made according to EU acquis communautaire in the process Turkey's full membership, on Turkish foreign trade. In this study, foreign trade between EU and Turkey (1988-2016) were examined in three periods: the period before CU, the first decade after CU and the second decade after CU, including acquis communautaire regulations. All goods subject to foreign trade, are included in the analysis according to SITC Rev 3, 2 digit commodity classification and grouped according to technological classification. Intra-Industry Trade (IITit) and Marginal Intra-Industry Trade (MIITit) index values were calculated, and the progress of index values in three periods were comparatively investigated by Repeated Measures One-way and Two-Way ANOVA tests. IITit index values of Turkish and EU foreign trade, grouped by technology classification, significantly differ from each other between 1st and the 2nd, 1st and the 3rd periods. There is no statistically significant difference between 2nd and the 3rd periods; in other words, there's no significantly difference between the first decade after CU and second decade after CU, which includes acquis communautaire regulations. It is concluded that the change has occurred by CU membership. Decrease in average index values of raw material intensive goods group; and increase in the average index values of the labor-intensive, capital-intensive, easy-to-imitate research-based and hard-to-imitate research-based goods groups, are evaluated.