The Determinants of Iranian Manufacturing Exports with Emphasis on Market Structure (a Dynamic Panel Data Approach)

The main objective of this paper is to examine the impact of market share as a structural variable, advertising and R&D expenditures as behavioral variables, real exchange rate and profitability on the Iranian manufacturing exports as a performance variable. For this purpose, the data for Iranian manufacturing firms has been extracted from the Statistical Center of Iran over the period of 2000-2007. Moreover, the empirical model of this study has been estimated by the Dynamic Panel Data approach (GMM Estimator). The empirical results indicate that the market share, advertising and R&D intensity, real exchange rate and profitability have positive and significant effects on the Iranian industry exports and the impact of market share is more than other explanatory variables. Therefore, the market structure is one of the main determinants of Iranian manufacturing exports. Also, due to the direct impact of R & D spending effect on exports, we can say that if managers and policy makers increase the research and development activity in Iranian industry sector can promote non-oil exports, especially exports of industrial products in Iran.