The Impact of Research and Development on Growth and Productivity in Agricultural Sector of Iran

Research and Development (R&D) spending plays a major role in innovation, raising productivity and increasing economic growth. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of R&D spending on growth and total factor productivity (TFP) in Iran's agricultural sector. We estimate growth and productivity models using Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach and data over 1974 to 2007. Our results indicate that research and development spending has positive and significant effects on growth and total factor productivity in Iran's agricultural sector in short and long term. Therefore research and development can be used a main source of further growth of agricultural sector