Economics Research

Abstract The Concept of Competitiveness is considerable from The micro and macro points of views. The present study in regard to the meanings of competitiveness is concentrating on a few distinctions First on The meaning's of competitiveness in the evolutionary ideology of comparative advantage and also dynamic comparative advantage in today's world has been considered by trade economists. In most studies, Competitive Compound index has been Categorized based on its determining Factors. But in this particular study, in addition to determining factors, the effects of the above mentioned indexes on factors of product function have been also considered. Because the original approach of this study is based on the fact that factors of comparativeness and ultimately to economic growth by the variables of the product function. 
Therefore in this study, first there has been a brief review over  Comparative advantage theory, dynamic Comparative advantage, and comparative advantage, then several different definitions of comparatives Competitiveness will be presented, and then by reviewing experimental studies in regard to competitiveness.  The indexes of labor competitiveness, Capital, and technology will be introduced and then by the method of numerical taxonomy for 57 countries during 1995 to 2003, the above mentioned indexes will be calculated. It is notable that Iran has never been considered in any of the competitiveness studies in the world and these calculations has never been done for Iran. In this study Iran's rank in reported indexes has been calculated and Iran's competitiveness place among the countries of the world has been determined. For evaluation of calculated index, one aggregated index from the 3 mentioned indexes has been calculated, and compared with the indexes of other studies.

Abstract This paper has assessed the neutrality of money in Iran’s economy by using a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model. Regarding this assessment, initially a computable general equilibrium was organized in which the financial market plays an essential role. Then, for the calibration of the coefficients, in addition to organizing a Social Accounting Matrix (SAM), a financial balance sheet was also provided. In this paper, the tool of reserve requirement rate is being used as instrumental variable representing monetary policy. The result of this research indicates that the monetary policies have had significant effect on Iran’s economy. There has been a reverse relationship between the changes in reserve requirement rate and gross national product. One of the other finding of this research is that changes in monetary tool has significant effects on GNP and so money is not neutral in Iran’s economy especially when a general equilibrium type of model is being applied. For solving the model the GAMS software and Non-Linear Programming (NLP) method were used.

Abstract In this paper, authors, reviewing business cycles nature and numerous outlooks concerning “raison de etre” there of, provide a model together with its estimated using VAR for the years 1959-2006. The results show that monetary and fiscal factors may affect economic fluctuations. It seems that fiscal policies have been more effective in creating business cycles. Meanwhile, there are other factors, which somehow are related to economic structure of Iran, play a significant role in economic crises within Iran’s economy.  

Abstract The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between investment, import and export on inflation in Iran’s economy. First, we talk about inflation theory and then give a short discussion about inflation effects on investment to make sure that our time series are stationary. We use ADF method. Then we estimate our models. We find out that the relationship between export and import and inflation is positive and the relation between investment and inflation is negative.

Abstract Post Bank as one of the financial institution has had successful experience in many countries. As a result, the Post Bank Company has been established in 1996 aiming of developing financial services especially in rural region. Now after passing a decade of Post Bank activities in the form of independent headquarters in provinces, assessing their activities is possible by the criterion such as efficiency which is the subject of this paper.  In this paper, efficiency and effecting factors on it has been determined for 28 independent headquarters of Iran’s Post Bank in duration of 1999-2005 form using Stochastic Frontier Functions (SFA) and Logarithmic - Linear of cost function. Result of this study by model (1) - assessing efficiency- shows that efficiency of Iran’s Post Bank is 60%. The provinces of Tehran and Charmahal va Bakhtiyari have had minimum and maximum efficiency respectively. Also, headquarters of Post Bank in the less developed region like Charmahal va Bakhtiyari and Kohkiluye va Boyer Ahmad, comparing with more headquarters in the developed provinces like Tehran and Khorasan, had been more efficient. Meanwhile based on the result of model (2)- assessing the Effecting factors on efficiency- efficiency of headquarters has inverse relationship with the size of Post Bank (total asset), number of Employee, number of branch, and time, has direct relationship with total income of Post Bank.

Abstract Demand for money is an important part of macroeconomic models and the monetary policy; furthermore, demand for money and its stability are important in an economy especially in the design of monetary policy. We estimate the Iran’s demand for money for period (1971-2008) using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) method. We also use the error correction model for short-run dynamic analysis and stability test in model. The explanatory variables include gross domestic product, inflation rate, and foreign exchange rate, short-run and long-run interest. The results show that there is a long-run equilibrium relationship between the variables. According to our finding , the gross domestic product have positive impact on the demand for money and exchange rate and inflation rate have significant negative effects on the demand for money in Iran.

Abstract Nowadays, the effect of foreign direct investment on economic growth, theatrically & empirically, has been proved. Developed countries have experiences, using FDI for reaching stability on economic growth and of course in this channel should not ignore the role of financial markets in these countries. In this paper, first the effect of FDI on economic growth has been investigated and then for the purpose of determining the stability of this effect, controlling variables have been used. The result shows that when controlling variables used, FDI have no effect on economic growth. According to this, several variables have been introduced to determining the role of financial markets. Through combining these variables and entering them in the growth model it is obvious that the effect of FDI on economic growth is significant. Therefore, it is concluding that, in Iran with better –developed financial markets, the effect of FDI on economic growth will be improved.

Abstract Export Processing Zones (EPZs) have been adopted by many developing countries to move from inward looking toward outward looking strategies. This paper hints that EPZs are instruments of export promoting strategies and compares EPZs in South Korea, China, India and Iran from the aspects of goals, background, incentive policies and contribution to total country exports. Results indicate that S-Korea and China successfully used EPZs for clear goals within their export promoting strategies. But in Iran, like India in the last century, these zones have not been established within any clear trade and industrial strategy. So, in spite of many preferential and incentive policies adopted in Iran's Free Trade Zones, these zones could not play a significant role in export and industrial promotion in the country.

Abstract The purpose of this survey is to determine of equilibrium real exchange rate, misalignment and impact of misalignment of real exchange rate on economic growth. According to introducing of new exchange rate literature on 80 decade and econometrics models in recent decades, the model that introduce here is the fundamental Edwards model that adjusted for IRAN. The variables of this survey for determining of real exchange rate are: government expenditure, the ratio of capital investment to GNP, capital account, the ratio of oil and gas revenue to GNP, the excess of money supply to money demand, the difference between parallel and official market exchange rate. The period of this survey is from 1959-2004 Iranian calendars. In this regard we use Johanson test in order to estimate long-run equilibrium real exchange rate and use vector error correction model in order to achieve short time relations and loading factors. After calculating real exchange rate from long-run estimated equation, misalignment could be calculated from the difference between real exchange rate and estimated equilibrium real exchange rate. As in most years in Iran exchange rates overvalued, when we calculate misalignment and use it for estimating economic growth model, the sign of misalignment was negative and therefore had negative impact on economic growth.

Abstract In this paper, the panel data econometric model has been used for estimating the price, income and Iran's import (from ECO and ECO imports  from Iran) elasticities during the 1998-2002 period. The estimated elasticities of mutual Iran-ECO trade indicate that importing and exporting income elasticity, price and substitution elasticities of Iran's imports (from ECO) are 1.21, 0.74,-0.42 and 0.07 respectively, while importing and exporting income elasticities, price and import to GDP ratio elasticities of ECO imports(from Iran) are 0.84, 0.71, 0.6 and 0.45 respectively. Indeed, income elasticity of Iran's imports from ECO members is greater than income elasticity of Iran's exports to ECO, however price elasticity of Iran's exports to ECO is greater than of absolute value of price elasticity of Iran's imports from ECO countries.