The Effect of Membership in Trade Agreements on Iran's Agricultural Bilateral Trade Balance.

Introduction: Nowadays, the membership of countries in trade agreements has opened a new space for the economic movement of different countries by facilitating trade through deregulation, dismantling tariff and support borders, increasing integration of national and regional markets, and access to different markets. But for all the benefits stated for agreements in facilitating trade conditions, the state of trade balance between countries in different economic sectors following membership in the agreements is not clear. Materials and Methods: Therefore, in this article, the effect of Iran's membership in regional trade preferences agreements, the Global System of Trade Preferences and the Economic Cooperation Organization on its agricultural bilateral trade balance with 45 major trading partners using the Gravity model in the period 2001-2017 has been investigated. Findings: According to the results, Iran's membership in trade agreements has significantly diminished Iran's agricultural trade balance. Also, the variables of income (0.997) and population (2.013) of trading partners, being high income country and common land border have a positive and significant effect and variables of exchange rate (-0.690), Iranian income (-1.005), distance and global financial crisis have a negative and significant effect on Iran's agricultural trade balance. Conclusion: It is suggested that due to the significance and positive impact of the common land border, the markets of neighboring countries, which are more similar and closer, should be given more attention in strengthening contracts and implementing market stabilization and development strategies to reduce tariff and transactional cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]