Abstract:
Among the food products, grains play an important r
ole in the consumption patterns of
people, especially in the developing countries. Sin
ce Iran's main source of public dietary
energy comes directly from grains, investigating an
d identifying the determinants of
import of these products can be an important step t
owards food security. Most
experimental studies consider import of grains as o
nly a function of relative prices and
real income, whereas, income inequality is also a v
ariable affecting the import of grains.
The present study evaluates the effect of income in
equality on the import of grains in
Iran's economy during the years 1969-2009. For this
purpose, the relationship of grain
import with gross domestic production (GDP), grain
production, real exchange rate, and
income inequality was evaluated for Iran by using t
he Vector Error Correction Model
(VECM).
The results indicate that the relationship between
income inequality and grain
import is positive and its coefficient is +0.55%
. This implies that 1%
increase in income
inequality increases grain import by 0.55%
. Also, the effect of gross domestic production
on grains import is positive and the real exchange
rate and grains production variables
have a negative and significant effect on grains im
port.
Keywords:
Grain, Gross domestic production, Real exchange ra
te, Vector error correction
model (VECM).
