Introduction: The development of export of non-oil products with relative advantage in the world markets is an inevitable requirement for Iran. In other words, due to the strong dependence of the country's economy on oil, on the one hand, and the instability and extreme fluctuations of oil prices in the world markets as well as due to the dominance of a multilateral monopoly market on it, on the other hand, many of the anomalies that govern this market have been transferred to the interior; and it makes the economic activities fluctuate according to the exchange rate. This study mainly aimed at investigating the factors affecting economic growth with the approach of exchange rate and export (non-oil products, including agricultural products). For this purpose, an economic growth model based on conventional explanatory variables such as labor force growth, fixed physical capital growth based on the Solow growth model (1956) and human capital based on the Lucas growth model (1988) were used. The real exchange rate was used with respect to the real exchange rate variable based on the study of Tang (2015). The studied period was 1974-2019.
Materials and Methods: The study also used Vector Auto-Regression (VAR) econometric model so that firstly, Dickey-Fuller test was applied and the stationarity of the variables was investigated, indicating that all the studied variables including Gross Domestic Product growth (GDP0), Capital Stock growth (K0), Labor Force growth (L), Agricultural Product Export growth (Ex) and Exchange Rate (Exc) at level I_0 were stationary and using the Schwartz criterion, the optimal interval of ‘one’ was determined. Then, the long-term relationships between the variables were measured using the Johanson test, and the model was fitted by the VAR method with an optimal interval of one. The results could be interpreted that basically, single equation methods were not important in the estimation of coefficients equations and the explanatory percentage of model parameters, and it was not expected that all the obtained coefficients related to the interval of variables were statistically significant, but it might be possible that the coefficients in total were significant based on the F statistic. In other words, in general, the F test statistics confirm the significance of the coefficients. Also, following the estimation of the shock effect of the independent variables on the dependent variable, it was analyzed and finally, the fluctuation rate of the variables was tested using variance analysis.
Results and Discussion: As shown by the results of previous concerned studies, there is a significant relationship between the exchange rate and the export and economic growth in the studied countries. Therefore, the analysis of the influencing behavior of exchange rates and exports on economic growth has always attracted the attention of economic experts and policy makers to formulate the policies. In the opinion of most development scholars, the role of capital in the process of economic growth is fundamental, because in this process, the society faced the increase in population followed by an increase in the replacement of depreciated capital and maintaining the level of national income at the same level as the previous year, we still need some investment throughout the year. Therefore, capital formation is an inseparable element of economic activities in any country. In general, the sources of capital funds are either domestic or foreign. In Harrod-Dumar growth model, capital is considered as the main factor of movement. Thus, the role of investment in this model is examined from the two dimensions of total demand and total supply. This means that when investment is made, the total demand increases; and from the supply side, when (net) investment is made, capital accumulation occurs, that is, it adds to the capital stock, and this causes an increase in production and as a result, an increase in total supply. The growth of the capital stock has an effect on the growth of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the results obtained in this study were in line with the other concerned studies. The growth of the labor force in the model has a positive effect on the economic growth, probably due to the demographic shocks of the Iranian economy under the unfavorable conditions while such a bad economy of the country should be able to be a stimulus for economic growth. Also, the high rate of labor, along with the increase in the rate of economic participation, has all shown that the Iran’s economy could benefit from the high capacity of the labor force in the country; therefore, the growth of the labor force has had a positive effect on economic growth. On the other hand, due to the handing over of public companies to the private sector, it has increased the productivity of the labor force in this sector and the application of additional employments has increased the production, but it has also led to an increase in the total supply and as a result, a decrease in prices.
Conclusions and Suggestions: The study results indicated that the exchange rate and export had an effect on the growth of Iran's economy. Since the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is considered as the capacity and foundation of an economic system and with GDP increase, the ability of the country to absorb and produce products increases, it is proper to invest in increasing the GDP in the agricultural sector and as a result, the ability to absorb and produce agricultural products in particular. Due to the many changes and fluctuations in Iran's economy, it is necessary that first, by formulating appropriate policies and solutions in the field of stabilizing the exchange rate and increasing trade, the control and adjustment of currency uncertainties should be provided in order to overcome this to see an increase in production, export and improvement of the country's trade balance. The use of exchange rate risk hedging tools, transparency in the government's foreign exchange policies and obliging policymakers to reduce exchange rate fluctuations could be appropriate solutions in line with import management including the implementation of exchange rate adjustment policies in the market to manage the behavior of the factors affecting the import policies to reduce the risk of the production and business environment which should be put on the agenda. It is necessary to manage monetary policies in coordination with financial policies, but as independently as possible, because instability in the currency market can cause problems in price stability and as a result, in profits, and thus directly affects the trade volume of agricultural products, especially products with high export value. In addition, it is appropriate that by investing and providing a suitable platform for foreign capital in order to expand physical capital, the grounds for encouraging investors are provided and on the other hand, the increase and promotion of total productivity is also the basis for increasing economic growth; also, by removing the obstacles and creating the necessary security for foreign investment, the scope for increasing the acquisition of technical knowledge and strengthening the simple workforce to professional workforce should be considered. Finally, considering the results obtained and the impact of agricultural products exports on exchange rate changes, it is necessary to create a stable economic environment in the long term as an effective policy and also to provide transparent information about the trend of future exchange rate changes in the short and long terms in the policy agenda of the policy makers and economic officials of the country.