JOURNAL OF SUSTAINABLE GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT (THE ECONOMIC RESEARCH)
Year:2005 | Volume:4 | Issue:14|Papers Count:8

Achieving stability in supply of food and providing for food security of the society are among the most important national priorities of Iran, as referred to in the 20 Year Development Vision Document, and require a re-evaluation. In this paper, important, influential variables in food security sector, their relationship, and their relative importance are calculated through MADM at three levels of "promotion of stable supply of food with reference to domestic production as the main principle of food security (decision making objective), "influential elements of food supply on the results obtained from food security at an international level, taking into account population, production, price, exports, imports, and national income" and "variables influencing stable supply of food including production environment (climate and soil), technology, economy of production, production model, production structure and consumption pattern". The model proposed and represented for decision making in this paper includes multi - variable, multi - level and AHP technique and uses pair wise comparisons and consistency coefficients.

Urban management and planning has gained a special significance in reducing socio-spatial disparities of urban communities in recent developments of sustainability practices. In relation to this matter, strong focus has been placed upon the concept of human development and empowerment of marginal and deprived social groups as a prerequisite for poverty alleviation strategies and programs. Obviously, promoting public participation and paving the way for sustainable development could be the most important outcome of this strategy. It is strongly believed that just through policy making based on priority of marginal and deprived groups and a more effective allocation of resources this would be materialized. The plan paper explores the nature of socio-spatial disparities in Tehran based on a number of indexes such as development and poverty during 1997-2001.The research findings show that spatial inequality in quality of life among different regions in Tehran existed and has been on increase during that period.

Developing rural industries is among one of the most important strategies in rural development. In this regard, knowing about productivity of rural industries can have a profound impact on increasing efficiency- especially with the economy facing some limitations in factors of production- planning, decision making, and strategies of rural industry development. By insights obtained from survey responses and statistical data, variety of indexes for partial and total factor productivity for different groups of rural industries of the country are calculated, and then using numerical taxonomy they have been ranked. The results reveal that rural industries enjoy the economies of scale, and elasticity of capital in all groups of rural industries has been more than those of labor and raw material. These results imply that developing rural industries requires more investment. Other findings from numerical taxonomy also suggest that productivity in food and drinks industries is the highest among the eight groups of rural industries. Thus, it is suggested that in order to increase the productivity of rural industries and their development, great importance must be attached to food and drinks industries. This will be more essential when its close links to agricultural sector is considered.

This paper aims to quantify the welfare cost of inflation based on Iran time series data during 1970-2001. To do this, by including a banking sector in the Lucas (2000) model, a model was constructed in which there is a new distorting channel for inflation as well as the transaction time as emphasized by Lucas and others. In accordance with McCallum and Good friend's "Shopping Time Model" transaction time (cost) may decrease by holding money. In the model employed in the present study, inflation can impose welfare cost on economy through two distorting channels: first, during inflationary period agents intend to decrease their non-interest bearing money hence, their benefits from the so-called liquidity services of money to facilitate transactions will decline. Second, inflation may distort inside money market by increasing bank seignior age. The welfare cost due to the latter channel which has been neglected in most of the research carried out so far.The proposed welfare cost function of this paper has been estimated for two logarithmic and semi- logarithmic forms. The empirical findings indicate a sustained 10 percent inflation costs the economy an equivalent of 7.2 percent of GDP in log form and 6.6 percent of GDP in semi-log form, in which almost half of the loss is due to the distortion of the inside money market. Previous studies of welfare cost of inflation neglect the second channel they, in fact, underestimate the true welfare cost of inflation. The results of the study imply a sizable welfare cost of inflation. Then, the neglect of the trade-off between inflation and welfare will induce the implementation of policies not leading to suitable resources allocation and social welfare. In the end the study strongly suggests that inflation be considered seriously in making economic policies to decrease its rate as much as possible.

This paper examines the effect of exchange rate fluctuations on relative prices of economy which has been frequently emphasized in economic literature during last decade. We used VAR technique to run a model and applied impulse-response method to identify the effects of exchange rate shock" on relative prices (Terms of Trade and Relative Price of Tradable and Non – Tradable Goods).The results imply that exchange rate depreciation increases relative price but it has no significant impact on terms of trade.The results have been tested through short and long run data in favor of robustness. Finally it seems that the results can significantly explain the fluctuation of price system and foreign trade sector of Iran in past two decades.

This paper attempts to shed light on the appropriate bank interest rate policy in the process of economic development, which has recently caused controversy and hot debate. To this end, it is empirically examined whether higher real bank interest rates are associated with higher investment rates in Iran. The issue is important since higher investment rates are associated with higher rates of economic growth.It is found that the investment rate generally goes up with real interest rates (up to 2 percent) in Iran economy but starts declining at still higher interest rates (1973-2000). Further, a banking crisis occurred for which real interest rates exceeded 2 percent, providing some support to Stiglitz's argument that high real interest rates may cause undue riskiness in banks' loan portfolios.This evidence rejects the Neostructuralist argument that higher bank interest rates would generally lower investment at all interest rates. Nor does it support unbridled financial liberalization. Yet, it provides only limited support to Stiglitz's case for "mild financial repression (real interest rates near zero)" since reducing real interest rates from say, under 0 percent would have reduced investment rates in Iran's economy. The optimum monetary policy seems to be closest to the position of Stiglitz who advocates 'mild financial repression'.

The models used in this study for surplus production are to be known as Schaefer and Fox models. These models were both used to estimate the maximum sustainable yield (MSY) for shrimp stocks of Persian Gulf (vicinity of Boushehr Province coast) in 1381 (2002) and the amount of standardized effort needed to produce this level of production (or catch), FMSY.In addition, this study applied Garcia (1989), Gull and (1971) and Cadima (1977) experimental methods based on the natural mortality rate (M) to measure MSY.The result of Fox model was almost the same results from Garcia and Gulland models, in measuring the MSY to be 1809 tons. However, Cadima's model over-estimated the amount of MSY.In the past decade, the natural habitation and shrimp stocks have been severely under the pressure of human fishing activities. Moreover, there is enough evidence that it has been over-exploited (FAO, 1996). There fore, this study proposes another index called maximum constant yield (MCY) which is able to give better estimate than precautionary reference point.Using MCY index, the actual harvest was estimated to be between 1200 and 1600 tons in 1381 (2002) which can provide the optimal stock of shrimps in the short and long terms for fishermen.