The Impact of Sanctions on Economic Growth of Iran's Agricultural Sector

Iran's economy has been hit hard by economic sanctions over the past four decades with varying degrees of intensity. Despite the lack of direct sanctions on the agricultural sector, it is expected that the macro variables of this sector, including its economic growth, will not be immune to the secondary and indirect effects of sanctions. Therefore, this study aimed at investigating the effects of economic sanctions on the economic growth of Iran's agriculture by estimating the linear ARDL model using the statistics of 1992-2019. The study results indicated, on the one hand, the positive and significant impact of net agricultural capital inventory, agricultural labor and productivity of net agricultural capital inventory and on the other hand, no significant impact of economic sanctions on Iran's agricultural value added in the short and long run. In order to maintain the economic growth of the agricultural sector in the face of sanctions, it is suggested that increasing investment in the agricultural sector, reducing agricultural depreciation, increasing the employment of agricultural graduates and adopting policies to support agricultural production might be emphasized by the policy-makers.