Oil Revenues and Export Earnings Instability: The Evidence from Iran

Abstract

As a member of OPEC, Iran is a nation that is dependent on petrodollars. More specifically, roughly 80 percent of total export earnings in Iran are generated from oil revenue. This in fact is one of the attributes of many developing countries in that their exports are concentrated in either one or a small number of primary products that contribute to the bulk of their foreign exchange revenues. Export instability occurs because export earnings tend to fluctuate annually to a greater extent for developing countries than for advanced countries. The factors that give rise to export instability can be classified as price variability and a high degree of commodity concentration. To date, no study has examined the impact of export instability in the highly oil-dependent Iran. This study develops a model and employs a forty-year annual time series data set to estimate the impact of commodity concentration and price variability in Iran. The estimation results obtained from the time-series model developed in this study does not support the conventional argument, regarding the positive correlation between commodity concentration and export instability. It also shows that fluctuations in petroleum export revenues have significant impact on total export earnings instability in Iran.