The Impact of Export Credits and Credit Insurance on Export Performance: Evidence from Turkish Eximbank

Trade-finance instruments may support export performance by alleviating financing constraints and reducing international payment risks. This study examines the short- and long-run relationships between Turkish Eximbank instruments and Turkey’s aggregate exports using annual data for 2001–2024. Three nested log-linear Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) models jointly incorporate short-term credits, medium- and long-term credits, insured shipment values and the real effective exchange rate. Intermediate-goods imports and external demand are added in the second model, while tariff and Russia–Ukraine war-period controls are introduced in the third. ADF, PP and KPSS tests examine the integration properties of the continuous variables and ARDL bounds tests evaluate the existence of long-run relationships. The bounds-test results support a relationship with levels in all three specifications, while the negative and significant error-correction coefficients indicate convergence toward equilibrium. Insured shipments have a positive and statistically significant short-run coefficient in every model and a positive long-run coefficient in the benchmark model. However, their long-run significance disappears after imported-input conditions and external demand are controlled for. Neither credit category exhibits a statistically significant relationship with exports. Intermediate-goods imports are positively associated with exports in both horizons, while external demand has a positive long-run relationship. The REER generally has the expected negative sign, but its significance is specification dependent. The findings identify insurance as the strongest short-run correlate of exports while showing that its long-run aggregate relationship is sensitive to macroeconomic conditions. Recipient-level data are required to establish causal program effects.