The effect of macroeconomic indicators on foreign trade volume: An econometric analysis on BRICS-TM countries

The concept of foreign trade has been interesting issue for economists for centuries and nowadays, it has become a phenomenon that is given weight by the countries. In today's economies, it is a well-known fact that the source of wealth passes through foreign trade. BRICS-TM countries, which should be investigated with their high growth rates and foreign trade figures, are the leading countries of the World considering foreign trade. In this context, the relationship between foreign trade volume, inflation, growth and real interest rates has been tested by using econometric methods with annual data covering the periods of 1991 - 2017. The total volume of export and import volume was used as the data of foreign trade volume in these analyses. LMadj test, CIPS test, Delta test, Durbin-Hausman cointegration test, CCE and AMG estimator and Dumitrescu-Hurlin panel causality tests were applied to perform the hypothesis test. According to the test results; while the bi-directional causality relationship between the foreign trade volume and inflation rate is determined, there is a one-way causality relationship between the growth rate and foreign trade volume. There is not any causality relationship was discovered between the other parameters. Keywords: BRICS-TM, Foreign Trade, Inflation Rate, Growth Rate, Real Interest Rate