Understanding Economic Sanctions on Iran: A Survey

This paper surveys the literature on the economic effects of sanctions on Iran, with a principal focus on those imposed after 2006. We discuss the challenges of isolating the impacts of sanctions and evaluate recent methodological approaches used to measure causal effects. Specifically, we focus on the application of the synthetic control method to disaggregate the exogenous and endogenous factors responsible for economic underperformance in Iran. We review studies on the macroeconomic impacts of Iran sanctions and examine those that focus on the sectoral effects of sanctions. Our survey reveals a large and growing body of literature that remains incomplete. There are significant gaps in the existing research on the impact of sanctions. Iran will likely remain the most important case study as researchers seek to fill those gaps.