The Effect of Non-Renewable Natural Resources on Regulatory Quality and Economic Growth in Iran

The purpose of this study is to investigate the experimental effect of non-renewable natural resources on the quality of regulation and economic growth in Iran, as a rich country in natural resources, for the period of 1997-2021. In order to achieve these goals, a model including the production function, regulatory quality changes and the creation of new technology has been designed, assuming the distribution of productive labor in these three economic sectors. The results show the negative effect of non-renewable natural resources on economic growth, so the elasticity of production with respect to the mentioned resources is -0.043%. The elasticity of production with respect to the quality of regulation is estimated to be equal to 0.10, so the improvement in the quality of regulation has led to an increase in production. The effect of non-renewable natural resources on changes in regulatory quality has become statistically insignificant, but the effect of GDP per capita on changes in regulatory quality has been positive. Therefore, both regulatory quality and economic growth are endogenously determined and mutually affect each other. It is recommended that policymakers should simultaneously focus on solving the institutional and non-institutional issues of the resource curse.