The Impact of Exchange Rate Overshooting on Employment in Agriculture, Industry and Service Sectors in Iran

The employment and access to job is one of the most basic needs of a community so that the increase in employment is seen as one of the indicators of development in societies. Given the importance of the issue, the aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of exchange rate overshooting on employment in agriculture, industry and service sectors in Iran during 1973- 2011 using the seemingly unrelated regression and vector error correction model. The results of vector error correction model indicate that due to expansion in money supply exchange rate increases and divergence from equilibrium path occurs which finally leads to adjustment in the long run. Also, the results of seemingly unrelated regression model show that employment in industry and service sectors is respectively negatively and positively affected by exchange rate overshooting, yet the impact of this overshooting on employment in agriculture sector is not significant. In this regard, the demand of labor in the industry sector compared to service and agriculture sectors was the most sensitive to exchange rate overshooting. In addition, capital stock in industry and service sectors has a positive impact on employment in each sector.