Determinants of Iran's Net Exports of Selected Manufacturing Products: The Effectiveness of the Environmental Quality

According to the Heckscher-Ohlin-Vanek (HOV) theory, besides labor force and capital other production factors such as energy and indicators of environment quality may affect exporting potentials of goods and services in an economy. Accordingly, the objective of this paper is to explore the effects of the main determinants, particularly carbon dioxide emission intensity, which is a proxy for environment quality, on the net exports of the selected manufacturing products (auto parts and petrochemical products) between Iran and its major trading partners. Basically, an econometric model for Iran’s net exports is applied to these trading products specifying two panel regression equations using the data of 21 Iran’s partners over 2000-2019. Empirical results have been obtained by estimating two regression equations of auto parts and petrochemical products net exports using panel GLS method. Based on the empirical results, there is a significant and negative effect of the ratio of Iran’s carbon dioxide intensity to that of its trading partner on net exports of auto parts, which implies a decrease in the trade deficit of these products. In contrast, the results show that the environmental quality significantly and negatively affects the net exports of the petrochemical products implying a rise in the ratio of Iran’s carbon dioxide intensity to that of its trading partner, which decreases Iran’s net exports of the petrochemical products.