The Impact of Import and Export of Medium Technology Industries on Economic Growth of Iran

Technology spillover from trade channel is important. Absorbing foreign technology by the channel of importation and using the latent technology in those products create export development, increase the quality and quantity of manufactured goods, and modify management, technology improvements and production of goods with high added value; this might favorise optimal allocation of resources. Importation of medium technology commodities is used as a proxy variable for research and development (R&D) spillover effect and technology transfer that would increase the knowledge level in developing countries. Also, this process might increase the share of medium technology industries in gross domestic product (GDP) and improve the exportation of these countries. So, national development is a basis advance of technology and technological change is affected by international relations. International relations by import of society-needed goods lead to competitive advantage increase the high technology industries. In this study, using Romer’s endogenous growth model, the impact of import and export of medium-high and medium-low industries have studied on economic growth of Iran during the period of 2002-2012. In this regard, seasonal data were used in an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model to examine the relationship between variables. Results indicated a positive and significant impact of import and export of medium-high and medium-low technology industries on Iran’s economic growth. Also, other variables i.e. capital stock, employment and R&D expenditure have had a positive and significant effects on Iran economic growth.