The Role of Human Capital in Economic Growth, Energy Consumption and Environmental Pollution along with Sustainable Development in Iran

In this study, the role of human capital in sustainable development has been analyzed through A simultaneous equations models (economic growth, energy consumption and CO2 emissions) using (GMM) over the period of 1971-2017. In this regard, and with the aim of improving the concept of human capital, average years of schooling and returns to education have been used as human capital index in the model. The results show that human capital in Iran due to the lack of attention to applied educations, the quality of education and mismatch between employment education and their jobs, not only lead to increase in economic growth but also make economic growth slowdown through Disruption of optimal resource allocation and waste of resources. The results also confirm the role of human capital in reducing energy consumption and thereby CO2 emission through the development of energy efficient technologies. The results also show that environmental considerations have not been taken into account in the process of economic growth and energy consumption. Finally, the results show that oil rents in Iran have reduced economic growth and thus اhas been led to the “oil curse phenomenon”.