The Dynamics Affecting the Export-Import Ratio in Turkey: A Hybrid Model Proposal with Econometrics and Machine Learning Approach

The indicators related to foreign trade are conventionally measured in a currency or as the ratio of the country's gross domestic products. The ratio of exports to imports, alternatively, provides more useful results when comparing the foreign trade performance of economies both over time and with other countries as a unit-free indicator. In this study, the macroeconomics and financial determinants affecting this ratio are examined both econometrically and using the machine learning method. In this context, the autoregressive distributed lag model method was first used to investigate the relationship between normalized gross domestic products, exchange rate, consumer price index, producer price index, crude oil and Turkey's ratio of exports to imports rate between 2010-2021, monthly. Long-term analysis showed that the 1% depreciation of the Turkish Liras against the US dollar increased the ratio of exports to imports rate by 0.7 points. In addition, a 1% increase in consumer price index will increase ratio of exports to imports by 1.9 points, while a 1% increase in producer price index will cause a -0.8 point decrease on the ratio of exports to imports. Then, the pattern between the variables was analyzed with quadratic support vector machine, a machine learning method. Finally, the novel ARDL-SVM hybrid method was developed, and the pattern between the variables was examined. The findings revealed that although the econometric method provided a broader scope for interpreting the relationships between variables, the developed ARDL-SVM method successfully captured patterns between variables.