Investigating the Role of Economic Sanctions on Bilateral Trade Balance of Iran's Agricultural Sector

The agricultural trade balance, on the one hand, shows the ability to earn foreign currency in this sector and, on the other hand, indicates the degree of dependence on food security from imports. Therefore, study of effective components can lead to more effective policy choices in the future. Regarding economic sanctions against Iran, this study aimed at assessing the impact of international economic sanctions on the bilateral trade balance of Iran's agricultural sector with 45 major trading partners during the period 2001-2017. For this purpose, gravity model was used. The results indicated that international and EU-US sanctions had a negative effect on Iran's agricultural trade balance with its trading partners; in addition, this impact was insignificant for international sanctions and was statistically significant for EU-US sanctions. Therefore, it is suggested that Iran's dependence on the EU as the US most important trading partner be reduced to prevent a sharp decline in trade in future probabilistic sanctions.