Macroeconomic Determinants of Air Cargo Flows in Ghana

Abstract

Air cargo flows in a country represent air trade volume involving the exchange of goods between countries, and it is significant to the economic development of nations. However, the instability of macroeconomic variables makes air cargo trade fluctuate with its decision-making challenges. This paper examines air cargo flows by volume, origin, destination, and Ghana’s macroeconomic determinants of air trade. The study collected categorized cargo volume data from Ghana Airport Company Ltd and macroeconomic data from the Bank of Ghana from 1991 to 2020. The study employed descriptive, correlation and regression to analyze data. ArcGIS mapping shows that European countries form the primary origins and destinations of cargo traffic in Ghana. The regression analysis found exchange rate (r = 0.43) and interest rate (r = 0.50) as the significant macroeconomic variables influencing air cargo trade in Ghana. This study highlights the need for policy decisions that promote an extensive bilateral exchange and lower interest rates for local production and export goods by air in Ghana.

Air Traffic Demand Forecasting with a Bayesian Structural Time Series Approach

“…In general terms, the use of socioeconomic covariates is presented according to the relationship that these can present from the economic point of view and how they could influence/impact the calculation of the forecast of each of the air transport variables to be predicted (Adenigbo et al, 2022;Kiracı and Battal, 2018;Navarro Hudiel and Acuña Mendoza, 2021;Rodriguez-Brindis et al, 2015), however, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic (especially in the year 2020) on all socioeconomic variables (as they are included as covariates in the models) do not show a positive effect on the recovery trends that air transport has had, which is evidenced by presenting lower MAPE with respect to models that do not include such covariates. Therefore, the use of the BSTS model without covariates is the best prediction alternative for the period of time analyzed.…”