Esranur YILMAZ, Mehmet Aldonat BEYZATLAR

FREIGHT TRANSPORTATION AND THE COVID-19 OUTBREAK: FRESH INSIGHTS FROM THE US ECONOMY

This study analyzes to reveal the Granger-causality between freight transportation and COVID-19 measures for the United States with monthly time-series data for the period January 2020 and April 2021, using freight transportation and COVID-19 measures to comparison the causal relations. The empirical results indicate unidirectional causality running from COVID-19 cases to freight transportation services index; to air freight revenues; to rail freight traffic and to Cass freight index. On the other side, it is determined a unidirectional causality is running from COVID-19 deaths to freight transportation services index, to Cass freight index, to air freight revenues and to rail freight traffic. The results of this study clearly show that changing number of cases and deaths are determining factors in freight transportation activities. These results also emphasize that the contagion deserves much more attention from public and private transportation professionals, who are responsible for the governance and the regulation of the transportation market.

Anahtar Kelimeler:

Freight Transportation, COVID-19, Toda-Yamamoto, United States

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