Effective Factors on the Growth of Provinces of Iran: A Spatial Panel Approach

I n order to have a successful regional planning policy, one needs to know exactly the effective factors on the growth of the provinces. Thus, determining and evaluating these growth rates are important for urban and regional planners. The main goal of this study is to determine the effective factors on the growth (population growth and per capita income growth) of Iran’s provinces. In this regard, three groups of factors, economic, social and locational, were considered. The population growth and per capita income growth models were considered via spatial panel for the period of 2007-2015. We have also studied the spatial dependence as well as spatial spillovers between the provinces on regional growth. The results show that there have been meaningful growth spillovers between the provinces of Iran. Therefore, any change in one province, besides having its effect on that province also has spillover effects on neighboring provinces. Also the results show that real per capita income, transportation infrastructure, the index of service specialization, the index of production specialization and the index of competitiveness are the most important factors on the growth of the provinces of Iran.