Investing in the Culture and Economic Growth

Culture is infrastructures of economic, social and political. Development of the country is not possible without considering that. Expenditure spent on culture is not cost, but it could be kind of investment. Countries can boost economic growth through investment in their cultural heritage and ultimately contribute to the welfare. The cultural index is estimated by using theoretical foundations of relative advantage and RCA benchmark and the impact of cultural indicators on Iran's economic growth in the form of dynamic integration regression (GMM) in the period of 1379-1395. Estimates show that with each percentage increase in physical capital, economic growth is expected to increase by 0.047% and physical capital has a positive and significant relation with economic growth. Therefore, it is expected that with increasing capital, production and, consequently, economic growth will increase. Also, with every percentage increase in human resource, economic growth will increase by as much as 5.73% and with each unit increase in the interactive variable of economic growth will increase by 0.0004 units. Therefore, the cultural index in addition to the direct channel through human capital can also affect the economic growth. The results for AR (1) and AR (2 are 0.17 and 0.688, which indicate the proper choice of model tools. In fact, in the period under review, the effect of the relative advantage of increasing the value of cultural variables on economic growth is positive and significant. Also, if cultural index can increase human capital, it can also increase economic growth.