NAMEH-YE-MOFID
Year:2005 | Volume:11 | Issue:1 (48 ECONOMICS)|Papers Count:6

The paper investigates changes in the social welfare in Iran between the periods of two development plans from 1989 to 1999. This period is marked with the implementation of certain structural adjustment policies. This paper attempts to identify groups that were made better off or worse off in terms of their real income. For this purpose both ordinal and cardinal ranking measures were used The ordinal ranking measure uses Lorenz dominance and generalized Lorenz criteria. The cardinal ranking method is based on social evaluation method which is an indicator of all possible social states. Changes in social welfare which is obtained from cardinal ranking measure and calculated on the basis of real income are related to the measured changes in income and inequality. Accordingly, the welfare level in urban and rural areas shows a positive trend while inequality in both areas was aggravated in this period.

This study aims to assess the role of Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth, labor growth and physical capital growth in Iran's economic growth by applying production function in the periods of third, forth and fifth development plan before the Islamic revolution of Iran (1963-1977) and in the periods of first, second and third economic, social and cultural development plans of Islamic Republic of Iran (1989-2004). The main findings are as follows: 1- The sources of economic growth of Iran in the first period (1963-1977) are physical capital and labor growth rate respectively. In other words, Iran's economic growth rate in this period verifies the exogenous growth model; 2- The sources of economic growth of Iran in the second period (1963-1977) are physical capital growth, labor growth and TFP growth rate respectively. In other words, Iran's economic growth rate in this period confirms the endogenous growth model; 3- TFP growth, labor productivity growth, physical capital productivity growth and as a whole Iran's economic growth rate exhibit sever fluctuations in both periods.

Uncertainty of oil export often affects the other major economic sectors. .This is not only the case in Iran, but most oil exporting countries are facing the same problem In order to overcome the problem of changes in oil price & losses due to this, most countries have established a foreign exchange fund .To this end, Iran has also established such a reserve fund. In this paper first, we have tried to review the record of foreign exchange fund in different countries. Secondly, we have discussed the losses and negative effects of uncertainty of oil revenues on economic growth. Hence, we have used a production function, which is derived and explained on the basis of economic growth rate. In such a function, growth rate of national production is a function of labor and capital growth. In the mean time the capital growth rate, which represents the public and private investment seems to be highly dependent on oil revenues. Accordingly, we have measured the uncertainty of oil revenues and its impact on economic growth by measuring the effects on uncertainty in oil revenues on capital growth rate. The findings show that uncertainty of oil revenues has had a significant negative effect on economic growth during 1966-2000.

This paper uses Linder theory, to measure the effect of globalization on regional trade integration of the Islamic countries in the Middle East and North Africa. In contrast with the classical trade theories (such as the Heckscher- Ohlin Theory), the Linder theory focuses on the demand side and explains the trade patterns on the basis of the similarities in the demand structures. Hence, the convergence and divergence in per capita income trends play a major role in increasing or decreasing trade. The findings of this paper suggest that Linder theory can explain the trade behavior of countries under study with members of OIC nations and rest of the world during periods before and after globalization. According to studies by Slaughter, Elahi and Nahavandian globalization leads to convergence in hemisphere per capita income trends and to divergence in global per capita income trends. Thus one can expect that regionalization is more likely to gain ground among the concerned countries are greater under globalization.

Islamic bankers use a combination of equity and non-equity financial instruments for financial investment purposes. Choice of an efficient portfolio of financial assets requires direct functional relationship between the supply of fund via each instrument with its rate of return and a negative relationship with its risk. Asymmetric information hinders selection of efficient equity instruments, unless Islamic bankers monitor the implementation of contracts with their partners. Although monitoring is a costly operation for bankers it is at the same time an investment for obtaining new information which will be used for the choice of efficient equity tools and their supervision. The performance of 24 regional supervisory units of Agricultural Bank all over the country during a five-year period of this study verifies this hypothesis. That is, the allocation of financial resources among equity and non equity instruments has been found to have a significant positive relationship with the rate of recovery and a negative relationship with the risk of selected instruments. It is, therefore, concluded that monitoring services of the bank is instrumental in the choice of an efficient selection of equity and non equity financial tools in Islamic banking.

One of research issues which has gotten serious importance especially since 1970 C in the interrelationship of religion and economics. This synthesis is usually discussed on two approaches. One of them is called "religious economics", in which religion does have crucial role. In the second, that is, "economics of religion'', economic techniques do have central place. This paper is responsible to review those approaches in its two main sections. It, finally, will be ended up by some concluding remarks.