Journal of Economic Research
Year:2006 | Volume:- | Issue:74|Papers Count:10

In this article we have investigated the factors affecting productivity and efficiency in Iran's economy; but the main emphasize has been on the government expenditures and its relation with the indices of productivity and efficiency. The relation between government size and economic performance and growth has been the popular subject for investigation for many economists.Beside the government expenditures, we have addressed other variables such as human capital, wages, foreign trade and income inequalities. To see the effect of government size on productivity and efficiency we have used government expenditures. The results show that the increase in productivity and efficiency could be achieved via, a) increase in real wages, b) stabilization of oil revenue, and c) restricting government's current expenditures to the traditional duties of the states.

Many economists believe that the main channel that inflation makes its harmful impacts on economy is the inflation uncertainty. Inflation uncertainty by its ex-ante and ex-post effects influences the economic agent's real activities and hence causes serious costs on economy.Thus, determining the relationship between inflation and inflation uncertainty can help the policy makers to make appropriate decisions and prevent economy from bearing such costs.In this study our main goals were: first, measuring the inflation uncertainty, second determining the relationship between inflation and inflation uncertainty both in short and long run.The results show that the relationship between these variables in short run is positive. But in the long run there is no relationship. Also in the short run, negative inflation shocks have less effect on inflation uncertainty, comparing with positive ones.

In this paper we estimate the demand function for life insurance in Iran for the years 1345-1382 as well as oil-exporting countries with middle income during 1998- 2002 by using the ARDL approach and Panel Data respectively. The results show that the income, size of family and education are the most important factors that affect the demand for life assurance in Iran. Moreover income and death probability of family head are the most determinant factors in the demand function for life assurance in oil exporting countries with middle income. Over all,the results implies the institutional and technical capacities, particularly in supply side, are the most important factors in life insurance development in Iran and other oil-producing countries and standard model based on demand-side factors cannot explain life insurance behavior satisfactorily.

What is the importance of free access to the instruments and mechanisms of finance, to accommodate the environment of the firm? According to Modigliani- Miller hypothesis, in the absence of transaction cost and government regulations, the firm capital structure and its method of finance is not important. That is, all necessary coordinations to finance the firm are done by price mechanism and each firm could fulfile its needs in current rate. By introducing transaction cost, however, the prediction of this hypothesis in the real world becomes irrelevant. In transaction cost economics framework, each firm, with respect to its financing needs, should arrange a financial transaction. The basic hypothesis of transaction cost economics discriminating alignment- predicts the method of this arrangement: transactions, which differ in their attributes, are aligned with governance structure, which differ in their costs and competence, in a discriminating -mainly, transaction cost economizing- way. Namely, the firm will finance its needs in a way to have the minimum cost.With accepting the point that depending on the firm's characteristics and needs, there is one mechanism of governance with least cost, it is predictable that, in the absence of proper or efficient governance mechanism of financial transaction, the firms are led to use the more costly methods. The difference between an appropriate mechanism of financing and its alternatives is the most important cost that is borne by the firm. In fact, this constraint is one of the reasons that explain the costly nature of the efforts of the firm in obtaining new property rights and maintaining existing rights. These institutional costs reduce the competition power of the firm and, in long run, drive it out of the industry. This hypothesis is studied in 40 small manufacturing firms that are active in Iranian economic environment. For this purpose, a questionary is codified and during interview with manufacturers are fulfiled.

After the collapse of the Bretton Woods regime in 1973and the formation of the flexible exchange regime, once again economists began to survey the effects of currency depreciation on trade balance in both developing and developed countries. These studies have shown that at least in the short run, the traditional theory that supports the position effect of domestic currency depreciation on trade balance could have the reverse effect. In this paper, impulse response function and variance decomposition analysis in VAR and ARDL models have been seasonally utilized to examine the responses and dynamics of Iran's trade (goods) balance with that of Germany relative to the changes of the effective real rate of foreign exchange (euro - rial) during 1995-2004. In this investigation the short and the long - term effects have been estimated using two indexs of the effective real foreign exchange rate. Results do not confirm the hypothesis of the existence of J-curve between the trade balance and the real foreign exchange rate in the period under review, that is the responses of the trade balance relative to the rise in the rate of foreign exchange have been positive over both the short and the long - run and insignificant. On the other hand, the response of Iran's trade balance to its real income is significant i.e. by increasing Iran's real income; Iran's trade balance with Germany goes negative. In the case of Germany, the coefficient of real income on the trade balance proves insignificant although its sign is positive. It is noteworthy that, considering CUSUM and CUSUMSQ tests, all the coefficients are stable.

In this article, the demand function for international phone calls from Iran to 47 countries that contained over 90 percent Iranian international phone calls was estimated by using pooling data model in three ways: general case, fixed effects and random effects. Then by using hausman test was determinated that unobserved terms are random effects.In view of the research outcome, the demand elasticity of international phone calls in ratio of the price, volume trade and in-flows (calls) is -.93, .37 and .33 respectively which is indicative of low demand elasticity in respect of the said variables.Accordingly, the demand elasticity of international phone calls in ratio of the income and internet users amount is 2.52 and 2.11 proving the high demand elasticity in respect of the said variables.It is necessary to mention the time series data used in the research are contained 1379 to 1381.

Nowadays in commercial- economical subjects, prediction is known as one of the main branch of science and develops day after day. Managers of different economics and commercial sectors, because of many effective variables, prefer to have a mechanism which can help them in decision making. Agriculture as a sector which produces strategic products and provides needed foods for increasing population in society, have a main effect on significant of economic, social and political decision making. Analysis of growth and inflation rate variables in Agriculture sector and being aware of there future trend and also knowing structural data generating models can help politicians and planners in suitable decision making.In this study we have used holt- winters exponential smoothing and ARIMA models. Monthly data for inflation rate variable during 1363-1383 were gathered. In order to make a comparison between linear and non- linear models prediction accuracy, we construct an artificial neural network according to regression model variables and ARIMA model. Result showed that holt-winters exponential smoothing has the most prediction accuracy of all. In our suggested model, agricultural sector average growth rate for the forth development program and average inflation rate in agricultural sector are predicted about 7% respectively.

Pistachio is the main agricultural export product in Iran. Because of its effect on exchange, imployment and added value, this crop is very important in economy. In this study to recognaize the exporting strategy of pistachio in Iran (at years 1970- 2002). I have used RCA standard and estimated export supply of pistachio. From obtained results, it was showed that due sensitivity and following from some strategies in the field of production and trade pistachio, Iran focused from 1993year to export strategy. However U.S.A exporting strategy is very exact and perfect.

This research examines the relationship between educational attainment and earnings in the context of human capital theory in the urban regions of Iran in (2003- 2004). using a sample of 12636 male and female workers clustered within 28 provinces, multilevel statistical techniques was employed to evaluate the contribution of education to earnings. Applying a multilevel method of analysis for investigating of the above relationship is the advantages of this paper.The multilevel analysis showed that data used are affected (a little) by a hierarchical of clustered, and the relationship between human capital variables and earnings varies (a little) across the providences. By treating individual province as a second level units of analysis, it has been shown that the rate of the differences in the earnings can be attributed to the provinces in which individuals are working. According this study, in the Iranian urban area, the levels of education, the experience in terms of years and gender of employees is significantly associated with their earnings.

In this article an empirical analysis has been performed to study the relationship between the volume of stock trades and the stock returns volatility using the MDH model at the Tehran stock Exchange Market. We also have tested the stock trade volume and conditional returns in the framework of the GARCH model. Contrary to the work of Lamoureux & Lastrapes (1990), when the trade volume is included in the model as an exogenous variable, the findings of this study did not confirm the weakening of the significance and the value of the parameters of the conditional variance. Also, despite studies done in developed countries, return volatility, when trade volume is replaced by the information variable, did not disappear or subside. So the MDH hypothesis for the Iranian stock market did not hold. The main reason for this is that the stock related information, which is one of the principle assumptions of the MDH model, does not enter the market continuously.