Iranian Journal of Trade Studies
Year:2001 | Volume:5 | Issue:18|Papers Count:9

Business cycles are repeatable phenomena but they might be different in terms of their domain motion and cycling period. In 1930s, economists attempted to forecast major macro economic variables such as GDP, price levels, unemployment...etc. In this regard, the structure of the combined indicators was watched in particular and econometric techniques were effectively employed in diversifying and expanding such indices. Present paper studies time series of 70 important variables in the Iranian economy relative to GDP. The results advocate that the real oil income and the real imports turning points are several seasons ahead of the GDP in terms of timeliness. At the same time, these variable have upward correlation trend and move in the same dicection. In another phase, a combined index was formed from two leader variables and characteristics of their turning points in the past decades were compared with of GDP. It was asserted that whilst combined indices behaviour is similar to GDP, its turning point is 4025 seasons earlier than the GDP"s. This phenomenon can be exploited to forecast GDP. Also, sutdy shows that during the past decades, the average stagnation cycles in Iran were 41 month and of booming were 32 months. In other words, booming cycles were consistetly shorter than stagnation cycles and on average, the business cycles of Iran lasted 75 months.

Economic growth depends on the utilization of resources, the rate of population growth, the saving rate, the mode of organization of economic activity, technological know how, and etc. The aim of this study is to assess the role of domestic R&D expenditures and foreign R&D expenditures through the foreign trade on total factors productivity in Iran. Reccent theories of economic growth treat commercially oriented innovation in response to economic incentives as a major engine of technological progress and productivity growth. In this view, innovation feeds on knowledge arising from cumulative research and development (R&D) experience on the one hand, and it contributes to this stock of knowledge on the other hand. Consequently, and economy"s level of productivity depends on its cumulative R&D effort and on its effective stock of knowledge, with the two being interrelated. tn a world with international trade in goods, a country"s productivity depends on the R&D of its trade partners as well as on its own. Therefore, in this research we study the extent to which total factor producitvity depens on domestic and trade partners R&D capital stocks. Wc cumulate domestic R&D expenditure as a proxy for the R&D capital stock and construct a trade partners R&D capital stock as the import wcighted sum of the trade partners R&D capital stock. We apply Johansen cointegration methodology in the estimation during the preiod 1968-1999. The partners of Iran in this study consist of 21 OECD countrics and United Arab Emirates. We find that both domestic and foreign R&D capital stock have important effects on total factor productivity and ecnomic growth. Estimated coefficient on the interaciton of trade with the foreign R&D capital stock is positive, then the effect of foreign R&D on domestic productivity is larger the more open the economy is to foreign trade, and the effect of foreign trade on productivity is larger, the larger is the foreign R&D capital stock. Similarly for the interaction of human capital with foreign R&D: if, then the effect of foreign R&D capital stock on productivity is larger the more educated is the domestic labor force, and the effect of education on productivity is alrger, the larger is the foreign R&D capital stock.

This paper studies supply and demand of exports in the Iranian economy. The results demonstrate that the export., developments of the Iranian economy could be explained by standard theories. Consequences of the cumulative structural functions and the cumulative space indicate that exports demand .is not significant which probably retlects high elasticity of Iran"s exports prices in the international markets. Hence, Iran is not considered a major player in setting prices of most of its exports items. Non - oil exports fluctuations are compatible with exportable surplu.s and affect supply relative prices of exports with elasticity close to one. The importances of real exchange rate in the exports fluctuations are times higher than other exchange rates indices and exports prices Therefore, the exchange rate fulctuations would only have decisive effects on non-oil export only when it could affect the prices of tradable goods to non- tradable goods prices. The pattern of non-oil exports response to promotional measures show that rises in exports are not derived from utility growth. Relative prices, production capacity and, in lesser extent, exchange rate variance, affect exports supply.

It is frequently suggested that export diversification is an important component of export earning growth and economic growth. In this study, we analyzed export diversification and its effects on non-oil export earning for Iran during the period of 1979-1999. In these process, we used two indices namely 1. Hirschman concentration index and 2. cumulative export experience function. Investigating the non-oil export performances showed that export diversifcation from "primary" to "industrial" export, resulted a considerable increase in export earnings. Therefore, adopting and implementing diversification policies are justified and recommended,

To protect Producers of agricultural products, particularly strategic products, various measures have been employed in the last tow decades. In order to maintain terms of trade in agricultur sector, pricing policy on the basis of real production costs in a typical utility unit has been one of the measures that government had to fultil. By using the time series statistics of 1971-1998, the effect of wheat pricing policy, as a strategic product, . on producers, consumers and government is studied. The obtained results say the supply ela~ticity of product relative to price and cultivation area have been 0.17 and 1.85 relatively, and wheat demand price elasticity-0.013. The results of this study demonstrate that the guaranteed price, set by the government, had been 26 percent lower than the market equilibrium Price. This resulted in Rials 1930 Billion loss for wheat producers and Rials 8300 Billion profit for consumers. The amount of Rials 136Billion extra cost was borne by the government (inefficiency cost) for its intelVention in the wheat market.

On the pace with fundamental changes of national trade and sustainable growth or agricultural products that has been blossomed in favour of non-oil exports promotion, it is necessary that reserve building and storing of agricultural products regains its place in expanding foreign trade services and non-oil exports developments. Reserve building is an activity that by creating useful timing benefits and relating the production and exports intervals, new value added of goods. It would minimise exports activity risks by generating sustainable expectations and controlling supply and demand in the foreign markets. It would then make the lasting markets of exports prices and revenues possible. Accordingly, reserve building is regarded as one of the basic elements of trade. Lacking reserve building equipment, especially when encompassed by other services such as transportation, would make the exports development difficult, if not impossible. In the long term, this will lead to losing export markets. In our country, despite the ancient history of traditional reserve buliding as well as persistant efforts of responsible and observatory organisations, regrettably, these activities do not make the real needs of the country .