Identifying the Macroeconomic Factors Influencing Credit Card Usage in Turkey by Using MARS Method

Abstract

We aimed to define the macroeconomic factors that have an impact on credit card usage in Turkey. Within this scope, we used quarterly data for the period between 2005:01 and 2016:02 in this study. Moreover, MARS (Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines) method was used in order to achieve this objective. As a result of the analysis, it was determined that there is negative relationship between credit card usage and unemployment rate. Another result of this study is that people in Turkey use more credit cards in case of high interest rate. While considering these issues, it was understood that Turkish government should focus on these variables in order to increase the credit card usage.

Keywords: Credit Card, Turkey, Banking, MARS