The Effect of Ecological Footprint Indicators on Economic Growth in Iran

Due to the importance of ecological indicators in assessing environmental hazards, in this study, the ecological footprint index and biological capacity on Iran's economic growth in the framework of production function were investigated. Based on the results of variables stationary, the long and short run relationships between variables were investigated by applying Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach. The results of causality tests indicate that there is a significant causal relationship from capital, labor force, energy consumption, ecological footprint and biological capacity variables to economic growth. The results also shoe that the ecological footprint index, despite the negative impact on economic growth, was not statistically significant. The empirical results also indicate that capital, energy consumption, and biological capacity have a significant and positive effect on economic growth in long run. Therefore, it is suggested that the country's production and trade policies be formulated in such a way that while preserving the biological capacity as much as possible, by limiting the import of goods that destroy domestic biological capacity, help to strengthen the biological capacity as much as possible.