Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1 Deputy Director of the Center for Partnerships, Investment and Economy of the Ministry of Sports and Youth
2 Faculty of Physical Education and Sport Sciences / Islamic Azad University, Damghan Branch
Abstract
The aim of this study is to empirically investigate the impact of sports industry development on economic growth in selected provinces of Iran during the period 2010–2014. The research variables include gross domestic product (GDP) as the dependent variable and sports sector value added (EA), sports capital stock (SRP), active workforce in the sports sector (CT), government fixed capital formation in the sports sector (QS), government size (BC), and human capital index (RA) as independent variables. Data for the 20 selected provinces—which were selected based on the criteria of the number of sports clubs, access to complete data, and geographical diversity—were collected from official sources of the Central Bank, the Statistical Center of Iran, and the Ministry of Sports and Youth.
In the first stage, LLC and IPS stability tests showed that the variables EA, CT, BC, and RA were stationary at the stationary level (I(0)) and the variables GDP, SRP, and QS were stationary after single difference (I(1)). Pedroni’s cointegration test confirmed the existence of a stable long-term relationship between the variables. Accordingly, the PVAR model was estimated with differential variables (D_GDP, D_SRP, D_QS) and stationary surface variables (EA, CT, BC, RA). The optimal lag of the model was determined based on the AIC information criterion equal to one lag. The most important strategies for promoting the role of the sports industry in the economic growth of the country's provinces.
Keywords
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