The effect of Accumulation of Domestic and Foreign R&D (Through the Channel of Imports) on Iran's Non-Oil Exports

According to recent development in theories of international economics، accumulation of R&D by creating innovation، improves the quality and diversity of goods and services and reduces costs of production and finally increases the international competitiveness of economy. Moreover، the imports of intermediate and capital goods cause to increase R&D spillovers and reduce technology gap between developed and developing countries. Therefore the purpose of present study is to investigate the effect of accumulated development costs of internal and external accumulation of R&D (Through the channel of imports of intermediate and capital goods) on Iran''s non-oil exports. Johansson cointegration technique is employed to estimate the imperial model during the data over the period 1968-2008. The results show that coefficient of accumulation of internal and external R&D is positive and statistically significant and the accumulation of external R&D coefficient is greater than internal R&D coefficient over the period of study. Thus، it can be concluded that Iran''s internal R&D activities play an insignificant role in non-oil exports development and competitiveness of the economy which is in contrast with the developed and newly industrialized countries. In addition، the findings show that a positive and significant effect of human capital and the relative price on non-oil exports.