International trade and Türkiye: Panel data analysis on economic growth

International trade is an economic process that refers to the mutual exchange of goods or services by different countries. The main purpose adopted within the scope of international trade is to give an opportunity to a country to procure goods that cannot be produced within its own territory or whose production costs are high from other countries at lower costs. In this way, resource allocation among countries becomes more efficient. International trade is of great importance for national economies. While economic growth refers to the increase in the amount of produced goods and provided services by a nation, the effect of international trade on economic growth has been a wide research area for various authors in the literature. Since there is not enough research on provincial level effects, this study examines the effects of imports and exports on economic growth at the provincial level in Türkiye with panel data analysis. In line with this purpose, two separate panel data analyses were conducted by dividing the provinces into two groups as high and low export level. The variables in these analyses are exports, imports and GDP per capita. According to the results, while there is no significant relationship between exports and economic growth in the high export level panel, exports have a statistically significant but negative effect on economic growth in the low export level panel. Results also indicate that there is a statistically significant and positive relationship between imports and economic growth in the both panels.