The effect of exchange rate volatility on economic growth in Turkey

Abstract

Purpose - Exchange rate volatility, which is defined as continuous fluctuations in exchange rates, has been frequently discussed in the literature recently due to its effects on developing economies. Exchange rate volatility is costly to the domestic economy through its direct and indirect effects on households and firms. Turkey implied different exchange rate regimes between 1980 and 2019. Also the use of exchange rate as a policy tool for fighting against inflation or current account deficit has increased exchange rate volatility in Turkey. The review of literature on the impact of exchange rate volatility on economic growth provides mixed results. The impact differs from developed to developing countries. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of exchange rate volatility on economic growth in Turkey between 1998:Q1 and 2019:Q3. Methodology - This paper uses an Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Model to analyze the effect of exchange rate volatility on economic growth in Turkey. Volatility of exchange rate is calculated from the real effective exchange rate by using the GARCH (1,1) model. ARDL model and the bounds testing approach has some advantages over other conventional cointegration approaches. Lagrange Multiplier (LM) test for autocorrelation and Ramsey RESET test for specification error were applied. One last diagnostic test of CUSUM and CUSUMSQ are used to check the stability of the short run and long run coefficient estimates. Findings- Estimation results of ARDL model show that real effective exchange rate volatility has a negative and highly statistically significant effect on economic growth in Turkey. From the long run coefficients export and investment have a significant positive effect on real GDP, import and exchange rate volatility have significant negative effect on real GDP. Conclusion- In order to ensure sustainable economic growth, it is necessary to strengthen the fiscal and financial structure and reduce the volatility in exchange rates. Financial deepening and fiscal discipline are very important in this respect. Changing the production structure and investing in education and high technology, increasing the domestic production of intermediate goods are also required for achieving high growth rates.