Journal of New Economy and Trade
Year:2010 | Volume:5 | Issue:19-20|Papers Count:11

Since the middle of the 1990s, a new wave of financial liberalization has been considerably emerged in a number of developing countries. More independence of central banks and reduction in financial repression through the promotion of capital mobility are some well-known aspects of the financial liberalization. It thus seems that benefits of financial liberalization in such countries have been quite pronounced, especially among countries that have suffered from the shortage of capital and from economic growth volatilities. While there are many advantages in this regards, some countries have experienced a growth collapse accompanied by financial crises. In order to estimate a panel growth regression, we have used data for 43 developing countries worldwide over the period 1996-2005. The empirical results indicate that financial liberalization has affected significantly and negatively economic growth volatility over the period of the study.

From the second half of 21st century onwards, with the emerging of computers, a great revolution is occurred in the information and communication field. While technology is responsible for creating jobs, it also eliminates many more. The main question of this paper is whether it may have a positive effect on the level of total employment? The objective of the paper is to examine the relationship between ICT expenditures and employment in selected countries of the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC). For this purpose, an empirical econometric model is specified and estimated using panel data approach. The data used in this paper cover the period from 2000 to 2009. The results of this paper confirm that ICT has positive and statistically significant effect on employment. However, the magnitude of the estimated coefficients for ICT is not the same in oil-and non-oil economies in the OIC member countries.

Nowadays, increasing production through productivity is one the main objectives of countries to achieve the higher level of economic growth. Many studies have aimed to find out the main determinants of productivity. One of those factors is knowledge. This paper aims to estimate the effect of various components of knowledge on the total factor productivity in selected member countries of the organization of the Islamic cooperation during the period 1996-2009. To end this, the unbalanced panel approach is employed. The results of this paper show that education and human resources as well as institutional and economic regimes have statistically significant and positive effect on total factor productivity. However, the effect of information infrastructure and systems' innovations on the total factor productivity is not statistically significant.

Achieving success in challenging markets of the future requires reaching a state of readiness to provoke a conscious and quick reaction. Firms with such capability will be successful in this competing environment. This paper aims to clarify and map the social capital for the strategies adopted in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) using the concept mapping methodology as an integrated combination of the inductive and deductive methods. We use purposive sampling method and in-depth semi structured interview with 12 experts to achieve a saturation level. The results of the study show that the dominant and outstanding position of social capital and its dimensions in strategies is adopted in SMEs. The study revealed that social capital plays an effective role in all four strategies comprising market penetration, product development, market development and diversification. Moreover, social capital appeared to be the most influential for product development.

Identifying critical success factors in new product development in the form of business strategies have prompted researchers to conduct researches in this field. Despite this fact, few studies have used new product development methods in existing markets of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This research aims to fill the gap in this area. Mixed research method employed in this paper. In the qualitative method, semi-structured and open-ended interviews are perfomed and relevant documents are reviewed. In the quantitative method, questionnaire is used to gather the reguired data. The results of this study indicate that fundamental factors in the success of new product development in SMEs located in science and technology parks are classified into four categories. They comprise managerial, commercial, technical and marketing. The proposed framework classifies the critical success factors into eight major factors. The proposed factors could be helpful for managers in SMEs to save the time and reduce the costs.

This article aims to evaluate the impact of advertising intensity (ad to sales ratio) on the performance of the Iranian banking system using panel data for the 11 Iranian banks over the period 2002-2009. Unbalanced panel data approach is employed to evaluate the impact of advertising intensity on current account growth, gharz-al-hasaneh deposit, term deposit and return on equity (ROE). The estimation results show that advertising intensity has no statistically significant effects on the current account growth in the banking system while it has positive and statistically significant effect on gharz-alhasaneh deposit and term deposit growth. When a dummy variable included in the models, the results are slightly changed. However, advertising intensity has positive effect on ROE only for private sector but negative in public banks.

In 21st century, achieving business success and survival become harder for enterprises. This fact comes from the new trade environment that constant change is its basic element. New situation necessitates reviewing the trading priorities, quality structure, strategic views and new pricing models that has been ever used. In this new environment which most of the trades are being done electronically and automatically, new ways is devised to understand the needs of customers and dynamic pricing is one of which. But in these dynamic pricing methods, human factor is ignored and these pricing agents usually act ignoring this fact that one party is human. In this paper, after reviewing pricing models and techniques, we try to analyze the human factor using field study and then a new model is developed using the findings based on the effect of relevant factors. Finally, different pricing methods are compared using a new model. Considering the effect of the human factors, an imaginary environment is developed and different pricing methods are used to maximize the profit in the imaginary environment. Simulation results can be used in different situations to determine the best pricing method.

The relationship between exchange rate and export promotion is a controversial debate in the professional economics literature. While mainstream neoclassical approach believes that devaluation of national currency decreases current account deficit, heterodox institutional-structural approach believes that the effectiveness of exchange rate policy dependents on the infrastructural factors of absorptive capacity. This paper aims to evaluate empirically the validity of these two approaches using a comparative analysis. To end this, the relationship between absorptive capacity and infrastructural factors is examined along with the technological catching up and export promotion using time series data of China and Iran. The findings of this paper show that the implementation of the same exchange rate policy could have different outcomes depending on the absorptive capacity of these two economies. More specifically, the effectiveness of the exchange rate policy depends on the various factors in the economies such as human capital, management skills, organizational coordination, and regional and international scientific and economic cooperation.

Agricultural sector constitutes a major part of the exports in international trade. Most countries have adopted the policy of supporting and subsidizing the agriculture sector. Such subsidies are usually provided by the governments or their public institutions which may cause damages to the agriculture industry of the other countries and disturb the normal course of free trade. The World Trade Organization (WTO) which is based on the free and fair trade regulates the agriculture subsidies through "Agreement on Agriculture". In this paper, we first review the requirements of WTO regarding agriculture subsidies. Then, we discuss the impacts of Iran’s accession to the WTO on the laws and regulations of Iran concerning agriculture subsidies and supports.

The objective of this article is to examine the factors affecting customer satisfaction at the call and sales centers of motor insurance of the Iran Khodro Insurance Services agency. Based on the literature review, customer satisfaction is affected by average speed of answer, waiting time in queue, satisfaction on the first contact, abandonment rate, average talk time, adherence to schedule, average work time, telephone service representative turn over and service level. Random sampling technique is used to determine the appropriate sample size. Based on this technique, 384 customers is chosen from motor insurance call center of Iran Khodro insurance services agency. Regression estimates show that telephone service representative turn over, satisfaction on the first contact and waiting time in queue are the main determinants of customer satisfaction.