An inspection of the relationship between economic growth, employment and export in agricultural sector in Iran (with emphasis on commercial and currency policies)

Abstract

The economic growth of agriculture sector and the improvement of its export as fundamental objectives in the country economical plans on one hand and unemployment and expectations of generating employment by economic sectors including agriculture on the other hand have caused simultaneous attention to the three sensitive and important variables of above mentioned in regulating the agricultural policies and the way these variables are related is also of importance. Methodology: For the very same purpose, in this study by using the statistics related to agricultural sector from 1971 to 2004 and by drawing on methods of econometrics, we have inspected the effective factors on economic growth in agricultural sector, its employment and export and the prevailing link between them. The resulting indicates the effect of employment, capitals and productivity of producing factors on economic growth of agriculture, the effect of agriculture capitals and export on employment and finally the effect of agriculture growth, relative indicator of agricultural export price and supportive and exchange policies on agricultural export. Results: According to the results, the necessity of investment increase, depreciation decrease and the productivity improvement of producing factors for the realization of higher economic growth, concentration on investment development through raise in capital stock and regulating strategies related to export development in order to develop employment generation in agriculture. Conclusion: Following policies of producing competitive products in agricultural sector, reform of exchange rate and keeping and expanding supportive policies (giving out export prizes) in order to expand agricultural export must be taken into account by governors and politicians.