JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS RESEARCH
Year:2013 | Volume:4 | Issue:4 (16)|Papers Count:14

This paper aims to evaluate Iran’s banana import market and the structure of imported demand using monthly data from 2005 to 2010 and seasonal econometric modeling. In order to investigate import price behavior of banana and structure of import market Inverse Almost Ideal demand system (IAIDS) and residual demand mode was used. The results indicated that United Arab Emirates and Philippine had low sensitivity toward changes in import quantity demanded for banana while Turkey and Ecuador showed more sensitivity compare to others. The results from residual demand model showed some degree of monopoly in Iran’s banana import market with United Arab Emirates and Ecuador. Thus, it is suggested that Iran priority for import of banana should be from United Arab Emirates, Philippine, Ecuador and Turkey, respectively.

This paper aims to study the role of marketing mixed elements in consumers’ satisfaction of fish in Khoramshahr township of Khoozestan province. A random sample of 400 households was selected and interviewed. Spearman method was used for the hypothesis test, and Friedman test was used for ranking marketing mixed elements. The results of using the Spearman correlation test confirmed that consumer marketing mix elements including product, price, distribution, and promotion had positive effect on consumers, satisfaction. Friedman test revealed that there was a significant difference among various elements. Finally some recommendations were made to improve consumers’ satisfaction.

The importance of meat in food basket of Iranian households, on one hand and reduction in household’s income, on the other hand, which is caused by sharp increase in price index, exposes attention to the main components of meat market. On this basis it is necessary to determine factors affecting meat market forces in order to adopt appropriate policies to regulate the market. The purpose of this study is to recognize factors affecting supply and demand of meat. Thus, using time series data during 1981-2009, the relevant functions were estimated with auto regressive distributed lag (ARDL). Results showed that meat production had significant positive relationship with carcass weight as an indication of improved nutrition and livestock prices and inverse relationship with barley as indicator of production inputs. Factors affecting demand were mainly, income, red meat retail price, retail price of poultry Demand elasticity indicated that meat was a necessary good and planning to increase production requires higher price for red meat to motivate producers. The results of error correction model of both functions showed high speed of adjustment towards long-term equilibrium.

It seems that there is a need to reform Iranian tax system in order to strengthen government revenue sources. This study aims to investigate the impacts of tax on agricultural sector. To get the objective a computable general equilibrium framework based on the Iranian social accounting matrix was used. The results showed that 15 percent tax on agricultural activities could cause output of agriculture and processing industries to fall sharply. It also caused a price increase of agricultural products higher than corresponding tax rate. While tax on agricultural activities could cause output expansion of oil and gas as well as service sectors, however it would cause GDP reduction by 4.8 percent as well as general level of prices to rise by 3.9 percent. In addition, Tax rate of 15 percent on agricultural activities induced a welfare reduction of 9.8 percent in rural Iran.

The main goal of this paper is to study exchange rate impact on the export of dates as one of the most important exported horticultural products in Iran. For this purpose, ordinary least squares (OLS) method was used to estimate the relationship between volume of exported dates and other selected variables. The required data were collected from various official resources. Results showed that exchange rate is a critical factor and exporters reacted to its changes. In addition, other factors such as foreign currency written promise, exchange rate unification and stabilization policy, had impacts on volume of date’s exports. Outsourcing foreign policy that was always considered a short-term policy had negative effect on export. Unification of the exchange rate did not have significant impact on dates export. Also, exchange rate stabilization policy led to reduce the potential exporter’s income due to prevailing inflation in the country and increased production costs.

The aim of this study is to investigate Iranian market power in selected exporting crops as well as to measure welfare impacts stemming from market power. Selected crops were raisin, dates, saffron and pistachios. Export price reaction and import demand functions were applied to measure market power. Welfare impact also was measured using variation equivalent criterion. Panel dataset of 1997-2009 were applied to estimate the functions. Findings of export price specification showed that increase in the Iranian market share resulted decrease in export price of the crops. It was also revealed that the Iranian money depreciation or exchange rate increment was expected to raise export prices of selected crops. Based on import demand specification also we found that Iranian exporters were capable of setting the export prices of raisin, dates, saffron and pistachios higher than the corresponding marginal cost by 3.7, 11.6, 19.1 and 20.3 percent respectively, indicating the existence of market power. Welfare analysis also showed that exporting agents gained welfare surplus by 12, 18, 26.9 and 26.3 percent of their export value under competitive situation for raisin, dates, saffron and pistachios respectively.

In this paper we try to specify the sections which have priority by using integration indices of communications and employment. Data was collected from input- output table of Fars province (1386). The results indicated that to improve economic situation of province, wholesaling, retailer, repairing vehicle and durable goods, farming, horticulture and transportation sections should be expanded respectively. Also “restaurant”, “clothing manufacturing” and “food products” had capability to increase demand for intermediate products more than other sections and finally, wholesaling, retailing, repairing vehicle and goods, farming, horticulture and road transportation sections had more intensity Public affairs and municipal services management had more linkage with other economic sections. The results showed that agricultural section was supplier of the intermediate goods to other sections and was less dependent on other sections. After building and public and municipal services, agriculture section could create employment.

Agricultural products market in Iran has always been faced with many limitations and structural problems which are almost due to the inefficient structure of this market and lack of modern economic tools. Hence, Iran Mercantile Exchange debuted to control the price volatility of exchanged goods as one of its goals. This study analyzes and compares the price volatility of corn in Iran Mercantile Exchange with domestic traditional market and Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Therefore, weekly prices of corn since March 2010 till December 2011 are used to analyze the interaction between the prices of corn in traditional market, Iran Mercantile Exchange, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the exchange rate and crude oil prices by applying the OLS, ARCH and VAR methods. Also the interaction of these variables is analyzed. According to the results there is no significant difference between the fluctuations of corn prices in Iran Mercantile Exchange and domestic traditional market, but the intensity of fluctuations in corn prices in Iran Mercantile Exchange is more than domestic traditional market. The exchange rate has significant effect on the corn prices. However, the crude oil prices had no significant effect. Therefore, using the derivative instrument in Iran Mercantile Exchange would help to reduce the fluctuation of corn price in Iran.

Forests play a significant role in human beings welfare. Most of forest benefits either is valued in low price is or is not accounted at all. This under-valuation often leads to inadequate allocation of resources and incorrect forest management and planning for forest maintenance. Recreational use of forest is one of the important benefits of forest. Kohgiluye and Boyer Ahmad province has vast forests which have provided suitable grounds for recreational use of people in society. The goal of this study is to estimate recreational value of Yasouj forest park and the amount of visitors willingness to pay. The data was collected by random sample from questionnaires based on contingent valuation (CV) and double-bounded dichotomous choice (DC) from 188 visitors of Yasouj forest park. Logit model was used to determine effective factors in individual willing to pay (WTP), based on maximum likelihood method. Findings of the study showed that 86.9 percent of visitors were willing to pay for visiting forest park. Results showed that bid, income, education and household size variables had significant effect on WTP. The mean amount of willingness to pay was 992.73 Rls. per visitor and total annual recreational value for yasouj forest park was 7.43 billion Rls.

Selection problem and difficulties caused by unobserved shocks and simultaneity problem which is created by the relationship between productivity and inputs demand, when firms determine the optimum level of input, could have a significant effect on estimation of independent variables. Existence of these two problems in decision making of firms causes that the estimators such as least squares have biased estimation for elements of production function. In this article, in addition to introduction of the three-step semi-parametric estimator of Olly and Pakes (1996) in order to control the biases of selection and simultaneity, we use this method to estimate tomato production function based on information of fourteen provinces of Iran in period of 1379-1386. Result of production function estimation with semi-parametric method (unlike traditional methods), showed that the physical capital, labor, water, seed, poison and fertilizer had positive relationship with amount of production, and among all of inputs, labor force, water, seed and poison were significant. Also results of models showed that estimated parameters of labor and capital were consistent with the implications of Olly and Pakes (1996) and showed that labor estimated parameter in traditional methods (unlike semi-parametric method), had an upward bias and the coefficient associated with capital was downward biased. Therefore, in estimation of production function and modeling of shocks, dynamics of productivity should be noticed in order to have unbiased result for estimation of factor shares. Also for processing tomato and increase in use of agricultural machinery, it is necessary to create tax incentives in order to reach the acceptable situation and modernizing tomato farms.