Iranian Journal of Economic Research
Year:2005 | Volume:7 | Issue:23|Papers Count:11

The main goal of this paper is to examine an appropriate exchange rate regime in Iran. Most of the studies in Iranian economy have suggested a flexible exchange rate regime with a coordination between monetary and exchange rate policies.In this paper, we test the hypothesis that the managed exchange rate regime is the most appropriate regime for Iran using the Mundell-Fleming Model, and 3SLS method for the period 1974-2001.The estimated macro-econometrics model has been used to simulate the reaction of five exchange rate regimes to oil shocks. The results reveal that the managed exchange rates in terms of trade balance and purchasing power parity are expected to yield a more stable prices and non-oil GDP growth rates. In contrast, a quasi-floating exchange rate regime, in which the exchange rate is determined by the percentage of trade balance deviations, will result in the worst kind of volatility in non-oil GDP and inflation rates at the time of oil shocks.

A large number of regional studies are now using data empirically on different dimensions of location (contiguity, distance), which are particularly concerned with the concept of "space". This concept explains basically the interaction between human being and environment. It is, therefore, important to measure its effects on various socio-economic and regional indicators such as growth and local employment. Failure to consider the concept of "space" in the relevant empirical studies can generate biased results in estimation and prediction.The objective of the present paper is first to study the conceptual issues and different views of "space", and then to explore its impact on data that have locational aspects. The paper will particularly focus on measuring spatial effects and different quantitative techniques used in spatial econometric models.

In this paper, attention is made to study the foundations, patterns, assumptions, logics and hypothesis of macro-economic studies. Also, we try to search the causes of delay in the emergence of macro-economics in relation to micro-economics. Then we shall discuss the Keynesian revolution and analyze the frameworks of macro functional equations.The main emphasis would be on the conditions and assumptions of Keynesian, post-Keynesian, Hicks-Hansen and Friedman theories. We shall also discuss the rational expectations theories and the cause and effect relationship of different conditions in the framework of macro-economic theories. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance of subjects, positions and notions of macroeconomics for the researchers and students.

The main focus of this article is to estimate production and household income multipliers for seven sectors of the economy using the four Iranian Social Accounting Matrices (1970, 1973, 1996 and 2000).The results show that the impact of policies of sectoral expansions generate household income inequalities and is expected to continue in the future. However, it is observed that agriculture and agro-based industries do have positive impact on the development of the economy, but fail to guarantee the urban-rural household income equalities which seems to be an unavoidable phenomenon for the Iranian economy. The results are based on current prices and therefore, the estimation of social accounting matrices in constant prices would better portray the structure of the economy.

In this research, we test for the factors that determine private saving in the Iranian economy during 1968-200I using auto regressive distributed lag model (ARDL). In this model, we examine the effects of factors such as disposable income, social security costs, unemployment rate, long term interest rate, inflation, Gini coefficient, ratio of the value of stocks exchanges to the terms of trade GDP, and a dummy variable for the post-war years. The results show positive effects of income, improvement of income distribution, and more developed financial markets, and negative effect of social security costs on the saving of private sector.Our results also indicate that the best and the most secured way to increase private saving is to improve financial markets performance that leads to a better absorption of saving and to an increases in investment possibility.

Capital is considered to be the engine of economic growth and development. Developing countries, however, are short of this pivotal factor of economic well beings. Until not too long ago these countries used to resort to borrowings from abroad to furnish this shortage. But in recent years, the developing countries have faced mounting foreign debts on one hand, and their inability to payoff these debts on the other hand. They are gradually being attracted to foreign investments. In this article, the impact of FDI on economic growth has been studied. The results indicate that FDI has a positive impact on the economic growth of the five countries under study (Indonesia, Malaysia, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and Iran). Moreover, the degree of this impact is influenced by the quality of the human capital of each country. This fact holds not only for FDI but also for domestic investments as well.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the Baysian generalized dynamic models of non-parametric data.Following a Generalized Dynamic Bayesian statistical inference Paradigm, in this paper, we provide a new approach for multi-parameters logistic regression when we have a nonlinear model between yt, and Bt. In this approach Response Variable (yt,) and the coefficients of the model (Bt,) are depended of time t.The proposed procedure is illustrated by applying a data set for unemployment in Iran, which has previously been analyzed by various authors.

In the early years of 1960s, Schultz and Denison introduced the concept of human capital. Since then economists have analyzed the role of human capital on various economic variables. Education, experiment, and health are three main dimensions of human capital among which education is considered as the most important one. The educational dimension of human capital is known as educational attainment.In this paper, after introducing different indexes, which have been used for educational attainment, we argue that average years of schooling is the most important index of educational attainment. By reviewing Barro's method for calculating average years of schooling, and implementing essential changes needed for consistency with the Iranian educational system and the data, we develop a method for calculating the average years of schooling in Iran. We calculate average years of schooling of men and women, and also for four educational levels (elementary, guidance, secondary and higher education) for the period 1961 to 2001.

The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of macroeconomic variables on food price index in the Iranian economy for the period 1959-2000. An auto-regressive distributed lag (ARDL) model is used for this purpose.The results indicate that monetary expansion and the depreciation of real exchange rate have a positive impact on food price index but an increase in the degree of openness of the economy will reduce food prices with no determinate relationship between food price index and food production and per capital income in the long run. Except for the relationship between food production and food price index which is negative in the short run, the results are similar to that of the long run. The error correction model is indicative of a relatively rapid adjustment of short run disequilibrium towards the long run equilibrium.