Assessing the Determinants of Customs-Related Transaction Costs in Turkey

Growing world trade puts forward the importance of trade liberalization and facilitation issues. As trade liberalization efforts of both governments and international organizations have mostly been successful, the importance of bureaucratic and informal impediments to international trade has been increased. An important part of these impediments is generally composed of complicated customs procedures and documentation requirements that generate the principal part of customs-related transaction costs. In this study, we examine the role of several factors in the determination of customs-related transaction costs, especially the waiting time to clear the cargo already in some Turkish ports. We find that customs-clearance line, customs personnel, institutions other than customs offices and information technology structure of the country are the principal factors having important roles in determination of these costs. However, there are several important factors affecting these costs through the customs clearance lines such as simplified procedures, frequency of operations, firm size, country of origin, type of the goods and some other risk factors.