Evaluating Learning by Doing in the Industrial Sector and its Impact on Iran’s Industrial Exports

The experience of some countries indicates that export has been an important factor in economic growth and its sustainability. Cost advantage, knowledge and innovation are the factors that affect export. Cost advantage in turn depends on various factors such as learning by doing. Learning leads to the expansion of international trade and economic growth by reducing production costs and creating a competitive advantage. The main purpose of this paper is to evaluate learning by doing and investigating its impact on industrial exports at four-digit ISIC codes level during 2011 to 2015. For this purpose, three different indicators have been operationalized to quantify learning and three export supply models have been estimated using panel data technique. Obtained results indicate that in all three models, learning by doing has a positive and significant effect on export supply. In other words, the effect of learning on exports is not sensitive to the way of offering operational definition. Also, the variables of trade openness, research and development costs and human capital all have positive and significant effects on the export of four-digit ISIC code industries.