Identify factors affecting on the economic growth of developed countries: Application of panel Tobit and spatial panel Tobit models

The uncertainty in economic growth theory and multiple alternative measures to affecting components on economic growth and lack of specification of the most appropriate to investigate the variables affecting economic growth has led to introducing new regression models to identify more accurate factors affecting on economic growth that focused by economic researchers. Therefore, Therefore, this study aimed to identify factors affecting economic growth and type of spatial communications of 21 selected developed countries during 2005-2013 using panel Tobit and spatial panel Tobit models is taken. The evaluation among used models in this study showed that the spatial panel Tobit with spatial error gave favorable results. Results showed that population, research and development expenditure, foreign direct investment and life expectancy has significant positive effect and trade liberalization has an insignificant positive effect on economic growth. It is suggested in future studies about countries with adjacent location, spatial models used besides the competitive models to achieve better results.