The Conflict Between Educated Employment & Economic Revealed Comparative Advantage: The Case of Northern Provinces of Iran

The purpose of the present paper is to examine the relationship between the educated employment and the economic comparative advantage of university graduates in Northern provinces of Iran during 1996-2002. To do so, a sample of university graduates who had completed their undergraduate studies during 19996-2002 have been chosen from all three main states universities in Northern provinces of Iran to find out their employment situations - if any - since graduation.While it has been shown that the Northern provinces of Iran all enjoy revealed comparative advantage from value-added point of view in sectors related to agriculture and this may lead policy makers to justify more student enrollments in the fields of studies related to agriculture, yet at the same time it was found that due to inability of economic sectors to hire the university graduates majoring in the fields related to agriculture most of them remained unemployed, this being a conflict itself. In order to overcome the above conflict it is suggested that the agriculture sector be modernized in these provinces to absorb and employ more university graduates.