The Impact of Human Capital on Economic Growth in Iran: A Nonlinear Approach

Recent technological advances have increased the importance of human capital over the past years. In this paper, we study the impact of human capital on economic growth in Iran using the nonlinear STR method for the period 1345-1389. To this end, we estimate a two regime Logistic Smooth Transition Dynamic Regression (LSTR) model in which the transition variable is the logarithmic change in human capital. The results show that the impact of human capital on growth is different in two regimes. In the first regime, if the human capital growth rate is below the threshold value, the effects of human and physical capital on economic growth will be negative and positive, respectively. In the second one, human capital has positive and significant impact on economic growth. The main conclusion of the study is that it is crucial to take the type of regime into account.