KNOWLEDGE AND DEVELOPMENT
Year:2008 | Volume:15 | Issue:24|Papers Count:12

Nowadays, the gap in intellectual property systems between developing and developed countries may be the main factor in explaining the flow of foreign direct investment. For investing in host countries, foreign investors need their intellectual property rights to be protected. Due to important effects of protecting IPR in conducting FDI especially in developing countries (including Iran), this paper examine the relationship between the flow of FDI and IPR intensity. This is done by using the index of measuring IPR intensity. The results show a positive relation between IPR and FDI in the period: 1989- 2004. These results confirm some other similar studies in developing countries.

The purpose of this article is to compare the situation of Iran's rural-urban divergences during the period of 1966-2006. In order to do this, several inequality indicators such as Sophere's index (SI) and Gini coefficient have been employed. Moreover, an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model has been estimated. Obtained results revealed that. Urban and rural areas experienced two different periods in this regard. In the first period (1966-1976) city and countryside tended to diverge, so that the socio-economic conditions of the residents in these areas were completely distinguishable from each others. In the second period (1976-2006), which coincided with the upheaval of the Islamic Revolution, rural-urban disparities clearly exhibited a decreasing trend in terms of the majority of the selected indicators. Findings from the estimated model indicate that industrialization and urbanization of the country caused diverging the two areas. Meanwhile, agricultural growth and the Islamic Revolution contributed converging rural and urban areas. At least two strategic policies affected to faster improvement in the socio-economic conditions of rural residents than that of urban residents; the first one was the emphasis of the state on the pivotal role of agriculture activities in the economic development plans of the country. The second one was pursuing social justice policies by the state throughout the post-revolutionary period. Meanwhile, there is a notable gap between these two areas from the point of view of socio-economic satisfaction.

Tourism industry is now being considered in most countries as an economic sector playing an important role in development. Tourism is also a potential resource that enables nations to reach substantially social, cultural and economical benefits. According to these potentials, this paper examines the causality relationship between international tourism and economic growth in Iran, using VAR specification over 1959-2004. We also investigate such relationship for a set of selected countries including the OECD members, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Russia and Thailand for the period 1995-2005, applying the Panel VAR Modeling. The empirical results indicate that there is a bilateral and long run relationship between international tourism and economic growth in the countries under consideration.

Now this is undoubtedly recognized that economic performance for each country over time is related to a great extent to its political, institutional and legal environment. In fact, these institutions and policies are that determine the governance quality. In a panel data study, we utilized newly developed indices to examine the effects of good governance on investment (FDI) flows for a sample of 34 middle-income countries over 1996-2004. The results clearly indicate that good governance is an important determinant of FDI inflows.

In this study, we investigate the reasons for Elites immigration and so-called brain drain. Another aim of this survey is to determine the degree of appropriateness of various strategies. Therefore the study is carried out among two potential and actual groups. The statistical population of potential immigrants included pre-university level students in Tehran and the statistical population for actual immigrants was through the past researches carried out on this issue. The data collected from both groups were classified and compared with each other’s and the results show that 4 main factors involves in the case of elites immigration in both sample: 1-Scientific, educational and research factor. 2- Economic, welfare and living condition factor 3- Cultural and social factor, and 4- Political-Managerial factor. According to the findings of this research and subgroups of these 4 factors, the advantages and disadvantages of place of origin and opportunities and threats of the destination point were determined and proposed based on the framework of SWOT matrix and finally we suggested some strategies. Also the result of this research shows that political-managerial and social cultural factors have more important role than the other factors in immigration of elites. One of the creativities of this research is to study points of view of potential immigrants and to compare these points of view with the opinions of actual immigrants about the factors of elite’s immigration and the use of SWOT matrix in order to determine proper strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to measure technical efficiency of the manufacturing sector in Iran's provinces during the period 1991-2004 This analysis focuses on regional comparisons of manufacturing performance and the determinants of technical efficiency among the provinces. The approach used to measure efficiency is stochastic frontier model from battese and coelli (1995) to explore the determinants of the technical efficiency. The summery results show the efficiency levels in the manufacturing are low. The average annual efficiency level for the manufactories of provinces is 0.374 and the average annual growth in technical efficiency is 1.1 percent over the period 1991-2004. Although the average level of the technical efficiency has been low, some provinces have enjoyed a substantial performance in this regard. The highest technical efficiency level recorded is of Khozestan province with 0.76 and the lowest is in Sistan Balouchestan province with 0.199. Surveying effective factors impacting in efficiency, two factors of government ownership of industrial units and energy intensity have negative (positive) impact and enterprise size (average value added of a industrial unit) has the positive (negative) impact on efficiency (inefficiency). The research also shows that provinces such as Boushehr and Hormozgan, have higher efficiency in average comparing mega-industrial provinces and have been experiencing higher industrial efficiency rate in the last years of the studied period. All in all, the most important policy recommendation which can be presented based on the research is that given the low efficiency level in huge industrial sector, efficiency increase can be attainable through economic management empowerment of public industrial enterprises and optimum allocation of production factors in the sector.

Entrepreneurs have a key role in social changes and economic development. Entrepreneurs have been the main elements in acceleration of development in developing countries and also have been considered as renewing element of life and extension of development in developed countries. For Iran's current economic situation, which is faced with the important problems like brain flight, unemployment or low employment especially among educated and expert labor force, also decrease in government investment, and the lack of sufficient economic growth, training of entrepreneur is more critical. Hence the study of educated employees' situation, in viewpoint of the type of occupation could be a useful effort. On the basis of the results obtained from this research, the probability of entrepreneur among Ferdowsi University educated, comparing with wage and salary employees in private and public sectors can be defined that, there is a positive relationship between income and age, there is a positive relation between entrepreneur and education of parents, while there is negative relation between vocation and main education discipline. Also entrepreneur is more among men in contrast with women.

In this research, a mass of information of corporations listed in Tehran Stock Exchange has been summarized in terms of measurable indices and then, through numerical taxonomy, all industrial corporations have been ranked and the basis of their degrees of possessing the indices. Time series involved consist of 6 months panels from the beginning of 1380 (Mar. 2001) to the first half of 1383 (Sep. 2004). Theoretical methodology used in the research consists of a factor analysis of indices, and identification of homogenous industries and finally taxonomy. The identification of homogenous and the taxonomy of industries were achieved through numerical taxonomy. According to the research results the investors are in any case advised to make portfolio and not to invest an individual shares. The findings also indicate that during the intended time panels the financial jobbery industries had been of the capital devoting it to buy shares of different kinds, in long term guarantees the investment more and lowers the risk of investment. The results have also shown that having optimal indices has been a relatively stable characteristic of the industries involved and therefore, the investors can make their portfolio through having an eye on the successful industries of the previous periods, because the ranking changes have not been sever in each period.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the earning component accuracy in predicting themselves can lead into earning prediction and /or explain the earning durability and the relation between earning and cash flows .The research hypothesis suggest that there is a positive relationship between the prediction power of stronger accruals and current cash flows and the prediction of future earning and earning persistence. The research results show that (1) it is possible to predict future' earnings with minimum errors based on previous earning report. Also, including either of cash or accrual items into the model improves the prediction. The results also indicate that (2) there is a positive relationship between the earnings function and prediction power of earning components and their stability .In other words, the earning components which enjoy more stability and/or high quality can predict earning in a more appropriate way .The finding of the study illuminated the fact that the effect of cash flow item in prediction models is much more than the accrual item.This is in concordance with Sloan (1996) who believes that earning return ability which can be broken down into earning accrual item is less endurable than the cash flow item: that is, items of cash flow components of current earnings are more stable than the accrual components. Also, the results indicate that (3) cash flows are more powerful in predicting earnings so it is possible to predict cash flows based on earnings and vice versa.