Iranian Journal of Economic Research
Year:2009 | Volume:13 | Issue:40|Papers Count:9

The neo-classical growth models explain the difference between economic growth of economies as a result of difference in economic factors such as capital (in the form of fiscal and human) and factor productivity, but according to new institutional economist those differences in fact originate from institutional qualities and structures in different countries. In this regard, the main reason of having low level of per capita income in less developed countries is the lack of good quality institutions for economic activities and capital accumulation. In this study, we investigate the effects of institutional qualities and other economic factors on economic growth in 50 countries for the period 1996 - 2005. Institutional quality is formed by combination of six basic indices as follows: voice and accountibility, political stability, control of corruption, rule of law, regulatory of quality, and government effectiveness. The results show a direct relationship between economic growth and institutional qualities.

Stock markets are strong means of attracting savings and directing them to investors, but their rates of returns are subject to fluctuations much higher than other economic variables. This paper is to examine of the volatility in the Tehran stock marketusing the conditional heteroscedasticity technique for the period 1370: 0-1386: 06. Based on the results obtained, (1) distribution of the return has positive skewness indicating that market players consider occurrence of negative returns more likely.(2) Return series is not normaly distributed and has more height than normal curve.(3) Calendar has no significant effect on return with the exception of second, fifth and ninth months of the year. (4) Weak Information efficiency is rejected. Thus, not all market factors transact professionally and, the information and the news affect stock price with a time delay. (5) Inflation has positive effect on returns fluctuations, but is not significant. (6) Exchange rate (Rials/$) has positive and significant but samll effect on return fluctuations. The small effect is probably due to the fact that there is only a little share of Dollar in shareholders portfolio. Finally, (7) Assumption of normal distribution for residuals is not suitable. In contrast, t and general error distributions if surplus kurtosis is considered are proper assumptions.

The relationship between international trade and emigration is being concerned in most developing countries with their relevant migration and trade policies. Such policies should rely on logical resolutions in order to reduce unemployment pressure on the labor market. Hence, this study examines the relationship between Iran’s trade volume and labor force emigration to the five major members of the OECD (the US, Canada, the UK, the Netherlands and Sweden) over the period 1992-2004 (1371-1383). Following Mitchell and Pain (2003) and Mayda (2005), a specified gravity model is estimated by panel data to show the impacts of determinants on the Iran’s emigration. The empirical results obtained indicate that there is a significant and complementary relationship between trade volume and the labor force emigration to the selected countries of OECD in Iran. Additionally, the results show that convergence in the labor force productivity, as a gap between the number of skilled labors falls in Iran and the OECD members, can lead to a decrease in emigration from Iran to abroad.

Since the Third Economic-Social-Cultural Development Plan and specially in Forth Plan, the government has noticed the importance and crucial role of TFP (Total Factor Productivity) growth in enhancing GDP and therefor, has been trying to increase TFP by improving the Partial Performance Indices (PPI). This article investigates the effects of PPI on TFP t in NIOOC, which is one of the main producing oil & gas sub-companies of NIOC (National Iranian Oil Company for the period 1997 - 2006. We use the Solow method with Cobb-Douglas production function as well as the Kendrick method. The results show that in NIOOC the most effective Partial Performance Indexes on TFP is “the proportion of operating & managerial staff” that represents the high importance of structuring & suitable organizational chart. Other indices which were effective on TFP of NIOOC were experience and expertise, the number of technologies used in production of oil, & finally the degree of using educated staff respectively.

In this paper, the effects of bank facilities and the real rate of foreign exchange on the agricultural products exports have been investigated a macro dynamic model.Time span of this study is 1358-1385 (1979-2006). The results of this study show that, due to the first shock of increasing real rate of foreign exchange, exports of agricultural products increases in a relatively small amount, and it decreases through time. Examining the effect of increasing bank facilities on the export of agricultural products shows that the influence of the first shock in the beginning is almost zero but in the last years of the time span becomes positive. This examination also shows that increasing the bank facilities causes higher rate of increase in the export of agricultural products. The credit policy in agricultural sector is a midterm or long term policy, so the effect may not be clear in the first years of the policy implementation but as time passes it becomes noticeable. Finally combining these two has a positive effect on the export of agricultural products.

Growth literature indicates that human capital, education and technological progress are effective factors on economic growth. Empirical studies present that natural resource abundance have an important role on economic growth in natural-resource rich countries. This study essay investigates the relationship between natural resource abundance, human capital and economic growth in two cases of petroleum exporters' countries: A) Major petroleum exporters1 B) Other petroleum exporters.We use a panel data for the period 1970-2004. The results indicate that physical investment and openness have positive impact on economic growth, and resource abundant and government expenditure ae inversely related with economic growth.Human capital has a different impact in the two cases It has a negative impact on economic growth in the first case, but a positive impact in the second case We can conclude that human capital can be main factor to explain slow growth in resource rich countries. Countries that are rich in mineral and oil resources neglect the developing of their human resources by devoting inadequate attention and expenditure to education. So these countries have lower growth rate with respect to others.

The present research analyzes the forecasting performance of a variety of conditional and non-conditional models of TEDPIX volatility at the daily frequencies under three performance criteria: The root mean square error (RMSE), the mean absolute error (MAE) and the Theil index. Under RMSE and Theil criteria, results show MA250, exponential smoothing, and CGARCH models have better performance among non-conditional and conditional models respectively.Comparing forecasting performance of conditional and non-conditional models shows that MA250 and ES models had better performance relative to conditional models. Other results of the study also reveal that according to conditional volatility models (except PARCH) there is a significant relationship between volatility and the targeted volatility range This result cannot be approved by ARMA. Furthermore, volatility varies in different return.