Misleading Aggregate Considerations in Sector-Specific Causalities: Long-term Bank Credit Usage in Fishing vs. Agriculture in Turkey

Abstract

As an alternative source of financing the assets, bank credits have ever been on the spot of business finance and financial analysis. Those sources of financing have mostly compared with the short-term appearance of either liabilities or liquidity. The relevant finance literature ensures that the long-term appearance of bank credits in the balance sheets of businesses is not only affected by the composition of short-term liabilities but also the liquidity. Nevertheless, bank credit usage, especially in the long-term, may have different characteristics amongst sectors. Some sectors may even deserve a thorough analysis in their challenge of bank credit finance. The fishing sector and the businesses which it contains may have been neglected in terms of revealing the causalities which might have been hidden by considering its aspects as a supplement in the aggregate figures of the agriculture sector in Turkey. Thus, this study aims at the core debt and liability variables along with a liquidity control variable, cash and cash equivalents or cash, to reveal the causality and cointegration aspects on the long-term bank credit potential in the nexus of these two inter-related sectors. We hereby compare the results of the model designed for the study in between fishing and agriculture sectors in Turkey for the time span of available and comparable data which has been represented by the Central Bank of Turkey as a part of nonfinancial or real sector data from 1996 up to 2009. The findings depict that fishing sector, unlikely to agriculture sector in which it is generally added and forced to share the same investment atmosphere of incentives, policy implications, and attitudes of the creditors, does have different features in terms of long-term bank credit usage. Cash and cash equivalents are not significant regressors for the agriculture sector, however, fishing sector has evidence in the long-run that cash and cash equivalents have noteworthy impact in the long-term bank credits. The results of the study will therefore help both the decisions on the creditors’ and fishing sector sides enriching the profound details and sector specific reasoning for which an aggregate point of view where fishing sector is seen as a part of agriculture sector could not reflect the sector’s characteristics on the path to develop the fishing sector and the businesses therein. We also believe that this study will present evidence for any policies and incentives in promoting new investments in the fishing sector of Turkey.