The Impact of Energy Price Gap on the Import Value of Iran from Major Trade Partners: Spatial Panel Data Approach

The relationship between energy price gap and import value of Iran from major trade partners is one of the main issues in international trade literature and has been considered empirically in recent years. So, in this paper by using Sato and Dechezleprˆetre index, the energy price gap has been calculated and then, the empirical model has been estimated between Iran and major trade partners during 2000-2016. The empirical findings of this study reveal that the spillover effect has been confirmed for spatial Durbin model. Moreover, the energy price gap has negative and significant impact on the import value of Iran from main trade partners. In other words, with increase of energy price gap, the import of Iran from its major trade partners decreases. The other findings of this paper indicated that the similarity index and real effective exchange rate variables have negative and significant impact on the import value of Iran from main trade partners. Moreover, energy price gap between Iran and major trade partners during the period of study is asymmetric. That means the increase and decrease effects of energy price gap on the import value of Iran is not equal.