Which are the drivers of the Romanian transport services exports?

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to assess the main drivers of the Romanian transportation services export flows. The methodology included 12 years and 137 countries, it was based on the gravity model and the panel approach was considered. For the panel regression, EViews 10 was used. Panel Least Squares Cross section SUR, Panel Least Squares Cross section fixed effects and Robust Least Squares options were considered. The major findings were the following: the economic size, measured by the GDP and the unemployment rate of the receiving country, cultural similarities, like common border and common language, as well as EU membership, have a positive impact on the Romanian transportation services export flows. The geographical distance has a negative, small influence on the transportation exports. The Logistics Performance Index, the Consumer Price Index and the Landlocked of the partner country are not statistically significant. The main practical implication is the fact that the Romanian transportation services exports could increase because the potential exports are greater than the real ones. The major drivers of the Romanian transportation export flows are the openness to transport services and the services trade openness of the partner country. The limitation of the paper is referring to the lack of data for the Logistics Performance Index.