Effects of Technology Spillover and Internal Research & Development (R&D) on Growth of Total Factor Productivity (TFP) in Iran's Oil and Gas Sector

The economy consists of several sections, and the performance of each sector plays a private part in the progress of the economy. The oil and gas sector, as one of the economic sectors in Iran, plays an important and undeniable role due to the main source of government revenue. Therefore, checking the performance of this sector can be important for the economic development of the country. The study of total factor productivity is one of the ways to examine the performance of sectors, which indicates the optimal growth of the economy of that sector. Therefore, this study investigates the effect of Technology Spillover and Research and Development (R&D) on growth of Total Factor Productivity (TFP) of the oil and gas sector in Iran for the period (1394-1394). Important factors of Technology Spillover include Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and imports of capital goods and intermediates. Accumulation internal Research and Development (R&D) and human capital also are considered as internal impact factors. The results proved that foreign direct investment, and the imports of capital goods, and intermediates as important channels of technology spillover have a positive influence on growth of total factor productivity (TFP) of the oil and gas sector in Iran. The results also highlight a positive impact of human capital. By contrast, results of our estimation show a negative impact of R&D on growth of total factor productivity (TFP) of the oil and gas sector in Iran.