The Impact of Economic Sanctions on Composition of Major Trade Partners of Iran (1992-2013)

The main purpose of this study is to assess the impact of economic sanctions on composition of major trade partners of Iran (1992-2013). For this purpose, sanctions have been divided in to limited, moderate and extensive sanctions based on the scales provided by Hufbauer and compiled two dummy variables in the model, Then the impact of this dummy variables along with other variables in the model's share of trade with partners have estimated by Panel data analysis. The model structure this study consists of two stages. At first, the model was estimated for all foreign trade partners. The results showed that extensive economic sanctions not only in current period but also in post-sanctions period has reduced Iran’s trade share with the trading partners. Second, to analyze the sensitivity of the model estimation results, all selected countries were divided into two groups; declining trade with Iran, ascending trade with Iran countries by using Iranian trade share with them. The results showed that extensive economic sanctions not only in current period but also in post-sanction period have reduced Iran trade with the first group on the other hand the trade with second sub-group countries has reduced in the period of sanctions.