Generalization of Fuzzy Gravity Model for Determining the Target Market by Adding Intervening Variations: A Case Study of Iranian Pistachio

The purpose of this research is to modify the aforementioned model for economies like Iran that face many restrictions in trade. In the proposed model, the variables of friendly political relations, crisis and economic sanctions, which were often used as imaginary numbers in previous studies, were added to the model using the fuzzy logic technique. For this purpose, the data of 67 actual pistachio target markets in the period of 2001-2020 have been used to determine the efficiency of Iran's pistachio export using the modified stochastic frontier gravity model. The results showed that despite using the modified model in Iran's pistachio export market, none of the selected target markets have full efficiency. Also, the results show that there is a significant potential for the export of Iranian pistachios to trade partners. The export gap for all partners is negative, which indicates that Iran's current export is less than the maximum possible export.