The Impacts of Transportation Sector and Unemployment on Economic Growth: Evidence from Asymmetric Causality

There are many factors that affect the economic growth of countries. Econometric studies in this area have a wide range of literature. In this study, the effects of transportation sector growth and unemployment rates on economic growth were examined. The application was made with economic indicators of the United States and the data covers the 2000/Q1 and 2018/Q4 periods. Selected indicators include the Transport Service Index (TSE), which represents the development of the transport sector, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which represents the economic growth and Unemployment Rate (UR) which represents the unemployment. Analyzes were started with stationary tests. After the graphical examination, traditional unit root tests were applied. Some inconsistent results from these tests and the fact that this period includes the global crisis necessitated the implementation of unit root tests with structural breaks. After the Vector Auto Regressive (VAR) model was established, the stability and assumptions of the model were examined. Granger causality test was applied to the stable model. According to the results of this test, no significant causal relationships were found between the variables. In addition, the relationships between variables were examined by asymmetric causality analyzes proposed by Hatemi (Empirical Economics 43:447-456, 2012). This analysis is made by considering that the responses of the variables to positive and negative shocks may be different. In the last part of the study, the results of asymmetric causality analyses were interpreted in detail.