Regional Development Planning Based on Analyses of the Competitive Advantage of Iran’s Provinces Using the Shift Share Model

In order to programming for employment creation and sustainable development of a region, it is necessary to have adequate knowledge of its situation and advantages. This paper, using Shift -Share Model, studies the relative advantage of GDP and the employment of main economic sectors in provinces of Iran. In this model three effects including national growth, structural growth and competitive growth have been considered that lead to changes in the attractiveness of the major economic sectors for employees and producers. Accordingly, the advantages of major economic sectors including agriculture, industry and services in different provinces of the country have been identified and ranked in 2010 and 2014, using employment and value-added data of them. Regarding the employment, five provinces including Hormozgan, Semnan, Fars, Kerman, and Bushehr are absorbing labor force more quickly than others; and based on GDP, fourteen provinces including west Azerbaijan, Ardebil, Bushehr, North Khorasan, Sistan and Baluchestan, Fars, Qazvin, Qom, Kermanshah Gilan, Markazi, Hormozgan, Hamadan, and Yazd have been identified as engines of national development.