Studying the Effects of Non-Oil Exports on Targeted Economic Growth in Iranian 5th Development Plan:A Computable General Equilibrium Approach

This paper estimates the effects of increase in Iran’s non-oil exports on its economic growth as well as sectoral outputs, using a single country, comparative static, exogenous policy Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model. The paper also investigates the share of tradable sectors in reaching to the targeted growth rate (8%) in 5th socio-economic development plan. For this purpose, the parameters of the model are calibrated based on Iran’s Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) which carries a snapshot of the Iran’s economy. The model is then used to simulate the impact of increasing the exports uniformly across all sectors by 10, 20, and 30 percent on endogenous variables, including sectoral outputs, and GDP. Results suggest that 2.03% of targeted economic growth rate would be achieved by encouraging a 6% growth in exports. Our founding also indicates that industry and mine sector in Iran, would have more influence on growth than other non-oil sectors.