Iranian Journal of Economic Research
Year:2006 | Volume:8 | Issue:26|Papers Count:10

Operating in international market, the Iranian airline industry is one of the first organizations which have used IT in Iran, and therefore, a good case for analyzing the impact of IT on productivity at the firm level. In this study, we first estimate the productivity of the airline industry using the Iranian National Airline data from 1962 to 2000 by the Data Envelop Analysis (DEA) and the Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) methods. We then evaluate the impacts of IT on the Iranian major Airline corporation. Many different cases have been considered in estimating the productivity. In the DEA method, both constant and variable returns to scale have been applied. In the SFA method, different measures for output have been used from which the passenger- kilometer variable produced the most reasonable outcome. The results indicate that the productivity in the Iranian airline industry has been fluctuating within a fixed range before and after the period 1976-83 in which the productivity decreased dramatically, mostly due to the revolution and the Iraqi imposed war on Iran. Furthermore, IT has had a positive effect on the productivity since 1990.

This paper uses daily data from the Tehran Stock Market (TSM) to illustrate the nature of stock market volatility in an undeveloped stock market. Although most studies suggest that a negative shock to stock prices will generate more volatility than a positive shock of equal magnitude there is no evidence of symmetric effect in TSM. The EGARCH model passes all the tests and appears to be the most adequate characterization of the underlying data generating process.

In this paper, we study the long run relationship between the monetary variables, monetary policy, and the stock prices in Iran. Theoretical basis of the model rely upon portfolio and Fisher theories. Monetary variables such as M2, interest rate and foreign exchange rate can explain the fluctuations of stock price index. We find a long run relationship among these variables using the cointegration ARDL approaches. Results show that there is a significant and positive long run relationship between TEPIX (Tehran Stock Price Index) and M2 a negative relationship between TEPIX and foreign exchange rate and a negative but weak relationship between TEPIX and interest rate.

In recent years, discussion about economic liberalization has been intensified by the possibility of joining Iran to World Trade Organization (WTO). But there has been little attention to the liberalization effects on domestic industries. This paper introduces and develops a method called "Policy Analyses Matrix (PAM)" that provides a framework for simultaneously studying and calculating all indexes involved in the liberalization.Based on this method, incomes and costs are introduced on a 3*4 matrix that will be used to analyze government policies and their effects on production. Different indexes in relation to liberalization effects will then be extracted from the matrix and classified at three main categories: protection coefficients, comparative advantages and cost competitiveness indexes. Policy analyses matrix is formed for Mobarake Steel Company and various indexes are assesed as case studies. At the end, the sensitivity analysis for this company's products and main inputs and relationship between these indexes has been carried out.

The Purpose of this study is to analyse the Intra Industry Trade (IIT) between Iran and China using Trade Type Approach. To avoid the geographic and sectoral bias, we consider the bilateral trade and concentrate on quality and commodity differentiation.Our findings show that the share of Intra Industry Trade between Iran and China is very low. In fact, a large part of our trade belongs to vertical (and horizontal) Intra Industry Trade. This means that we have a low competitive power in final products, whereas we have a high competitive power in raw materials, and low quality products. Our investigation suggests that Iran’s situation can be improved by the quality of exported products. Our study also shows that high unemployment rates are in sectors in which the Intra Industry Trade is weak. Our finding implies a necessity for change in free trade strategy, so that by increasing the quality of products, Iran may increase its share in Intra Industry Trade with China and enjoy a higher industrial employment.

This paper studies the feasibility and effectiveness of Regional Trade Arrangements (RTA’s) among the member states of Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), based on comparative advantage principle. After a brief review on the theories of Regional Integration, the basic factors of effectiveness for RTA’s were reviewed. Then based on various determinants of Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) the feasibility and effectiveness of RTA’s among the OIC member states are analysed.The results show that a great share of the intra group exports of OIC member countries is based on comparative advantage, so the Regional Trade Arrangements among these countries are feasible and effective.

The paper explains the link between fiscal decentralization and provincial, national, and aggregate government size. We discuss how fiscal decentralization measures (expenditure, revenue, and vertical imbalance) affect the government size. Fiscal decentralization is an institutional variable, which is related to the intergovernmental relationship, and can affect the ability of some provincial decisions. It affects on efficiency through reallocation of public resources to match with tastes and preferences of local residences. We show that: (1) the relationship between fiscal decentralization of expenditures and government size is negative for aggregate and national government, and positive for provincial governments. Thus, decentralization of expenditures tends to decrease aggregate and national government size. (2) Revenue decentralization measure does not have any significant effect on the income and their size of the provincial governments. And finally, (3) vertical imbalances tend to increase the size of provincial, national, and aggregate governments.

The exchange rate pass-through is defined as a change in exchange rate as a result of a change in prices of imported goods. The pass-through is generally measured based on the responsiveness of the import price index to changes in real exchange rate.This paper attempts to explore the importance of exchange rate pass-through in the Iranian economy using Neuro-Fuzzy Systems. To examine the impacts of monetary and foreign exchange policies, as well as the degree of economic openness on exchange rate pass-through in Iran, we specify a model of import prices and exchange rate for the Iranian economy.In general, the results indicate that the policies have significant and positive effects on the exchange rate pass-through in Iran. We also show that the method used is an efficient and reliable technique for forecasting the trends of the exchange rate and the price variables.

Petrochemical industry plays an important role in the world economy and has many forward and backward linkages with other sectors. Therefore, capacity expansion through attracting FDI in this industry can help the economy of the host countries to enjoy technology transfer and to grow faster.The main purpose of this study is to present and estimate a model in which the major determinants of FDI in the Iran's Petrochemical Industry are specified. The model coefficients are estimated by the Panel Data, using observations of FDI and the relevant variables on a set of the Iranian individual petrochemical complexes, over the period 1993-2002.The estimation results indicate that profitability of the host industry, the economic size (production capacity), the degree of openness of the industry and the level of R&D expenses affect significantly the inflow of FDI to the Iran's Petrochemical Industry. In other words, improvement in the quantity and quality of such significant factors leads to the inflow of FDI to petrochemical industry of Iran and eventually expanding potential of the industry as well as other sectors dependent on development of the petrochemical industry.