The Effect of Foreign Trade Volume of Seafood: An Analysis on the Gravity Model Method of Turkey

Seafood is a vital food resource and, more importantly, a common subject in many areas such as the environment, employment, and foreign trade in sectoral terms. In this study, we investigated the effect of Turkey's seafood production and its trade with these products on Turkey’s foreign in line with the predictions of the gravity model, which is a theory of international economics. As a result, using 1990-2019 data with 12 countries where Turkey has the highest seafood trade, trading partners with higher revenues showed a higher demand and greater import chances, and an increase in production capacity by Turkey could create additional trade volumes. Besides, the geographical distance is negative and statistically significant in the models following the theoretical expectation, and the shipping cost was the critical factor determining Turkey's bilateral trade performance. The exchange rate has a positive and significant effect on trade, and seafood exports have a positive and statistically significant effect on trade, while imports have a negative and significant effect. As a result of the study, if Turkey's production increases overall the model variables, its trade will increase following the gravity model.