Air Transportation and Its Impact on Economic Growth in Provinces of Iran

This Paper seeks to identify the status of air transport in in Iranian provinces and investigate its impact on province-level economic growth. Based on the latest data on regional accounts -published in 2012 by the Center for Statistics of Iran- this paper uses the so-called value added comparative advantage of air transportation in provinces of Iran to calculate the Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA). The paper also deals with the impact of comparative advantage of air transportation on economic growth during the implementation of the Fourth Development Plan. The results show that in air transportation the provinces of Hormozgan, Khorasan-e Razavi, Tehran and Sistan-Balochestan enjoy higher comparative advantage respectively during the government's Fourth Development Plan. Also, based on Panel data regression our findings did support a positive effect value-added comparative advantage of air transportation on economic growth in provinces of Iran.