Sanctions against Iran – A preliminary economic assessment

This chapter seeks to contribute to the academic and policy debates on the merits of sanctions against Iran by providing an empirical analysis of their economic impact. It starts by taking a look at stylised facts in order to establish whether sanctions are effective – measured by the degree to which they have constrained the Iranian authorities’ ability to sustain their ambitions in the nuclear field as a result of the costs sanctions have inflicted on the country. Having established the conditions under which sanctions meet the criteria for success (as developed in chapter I), the rest of the chapter explores the results of an econometric model that not only tracks the economic mechanisms through which sanctions operate, but also analyses their spillover effects in the political realm.