JOURNAL OF SUSTAINABLE GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT (THE ECONOMIC RESEARCH)
Year:2009 | Volume:9 | Issue:3|Papers Count:8

The world is changing at a rapid pace and our viewpoint too. Moreover, the impact of government policy on social and economic growth is changing at the same pace. Many researchers have attempted to estimate the impact of government expenditures on economic growth. In this regard, they have used either a particular statistical model or Ram’s model (1986) employing a production function which criticized because of statistical limitations.The purpose of this article is to introduce an alternative theoretical framework based on the conventional demand theory applied by Bairam (1990). The annual time series data from 1974 to 2005 is employed to examine the effect of government size on economic growth in Iran. The empirical findings indicate that the government expenditures have a positive effect on economic growth which is consistent with the theory used in this paper and also it is in harmony with the empirical results of the similar studies.

Casual relationship between financial developments and economic growth is one of the striking empirical macroeconomic relationships. Following the development of financial issues, our attention turns from economic growth to another issue of economic welfare. In this study, we try to examine the relationship between financial developments, economic growth, poverty and inequality in OPEC countries. The simulation of the models and statistical inferences, in this study, are based on the static and dynamic panel data approach. The empirical models are estimated by using GMM estimators, fixed effects and random effects using the data between 1990 and 2004. The results of this study show that financial developments through its effect on economic growth can mainly contribute poverty alleviation and inequality reduction in these countries.

Understanding the different aspects of the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth can outstandingly help to adopt appropriate policies in energy sector. Structural breaks and regime shifts may affect the above relationship. Therefore, it is important to consider structural breaks and regime shifts in empirical analysis. In this paper, the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth is analyzed in the presence of structural breaks. The empirical models are specified and estimated using Iran's time series data during 1967- 2005 period. To this end, unit root tests proposed by Zivot and Andrews (1992) are first used to identify structural breaks found endogenously and then the Gregory-Hansen cointegration test, which allows structural breaks in time series, is employed to estimate the long-run relationship between energy consumption and economic growth. The results show that in the long run, there is a positive and significant relationship between energy consumption and economic growth in Iran.

The 2006 census reveals that more than 50% of employed population in Iran is not involved in the production of food, clothing, housing and other tangible goods. Apart from the serious reservation of industrialization in Iran, this can be considered as one of the indications of a new phase shift known as “service economy”. To analyze such a post-industrialization economy, it requires new concepts and classifications which, to our knowledge, have been ignored by researchers mainly in Iran. The main objective of this paper is to measure and identify the domain of the fourth sector and its structural analysis in the framework of input-output and semi-social accounting matrix models.Using 2001 input-output data, the overall results show that the fourth sector appears to be oriented as a consumption goods sector compared to the other sectors. Consequently, the consumption-induced effect ploys a significant role in rising production, income and employment.

Computable general equilibrium (CGE) models have become a standard tool of empirical economic analysis and were extensively used to assess the impact of trade liberalization by policy analysts. In this study, the effects of imports tariff reduction as a trade liberalization index are investigated on key economic variables using computable general equilibrium approach. The data used in this study are obtained from the social accounting matrix of year 2001 in which parameters of model are calibrated accordingly.Results of simulations show that if the imports tariff rate is cut by 50% and 100% across all sectors, total supply and investment will reduce while total exports, total imports, household income and consumption will increase.

Agricultural sector is one of the most significant sectors in Iran. This sector accounts for a significant share of GDP, employment and non-oil exports in the economy. Moreover, it produces food and also raw materials used to produce manufacturing products. Therefore, the effects of macro policies on agriculture need to be well understood.This study aims to investigate the effects of exports and tax policy on agricultural employment in Iran during the period 1979 – 2005. Autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach is used to estimate the empirical model. The findings of this study show that direct tax has significant and negative effect on agricultural employment while exports have significant and positive effect.

Large natural gas reserves are a great potential economic advantage for Iran's economy. As long as the consumption and production of the natural gas increase in the country, gas industry will play a vital role in meeting oil industry's needs. This paper aims to investigate optimal usage of the Iranian natural gas reserves among different applications and also opportunity cost of allocations by developing the gas industry over a long time horizon. Using welfare function, nonlinear dynamic model is applied to solve the problem of gas allocation among alternatives such as domestic consumption, gas injection, gas exports or gas salvaging using the data over the period 2006-2031. The constraints include gas production, requirements of gas injection, domestic growth, gas consumption and other effective variables and parameters related to the natural gas reserves allocation. Findings confirm that priorities and the values of optimal allocation gas depend on the constraints of natural gas production, energy policy, target of injection for preservation or increasing the pressure of oil reservoirs and gas imports. Furthermore, low discount rate gas injection has an absolute priority to gas exports. In the baseline scenario, if domestic gas consumption continuously growth at its average rate of last 11 years performance, it won't be possible to allocate gas injection according to the preservation pressure of oil reservoirs scenario and gas exports. The results of optimal gas salvage and its shadow price shows that the lack of gas production ability has a very high opportunity cost at the beginning years.

The topic of demand for sport has attracted substantial attention in the fields of sports economics in recent decades. Sport contest is one of the important products in the sport industry. Understanding the factors that affect the demand for this product can help football managers to earn more money. The main goal of this article is to identify the factors affecting demand for Iranian Football Premier League. To this end, demand function for Premier League Football is specified and estimated using the data during 2005 - 2006 seasons. The results reveal that match variables as well as economic variables have significant effect on the demand for Premier League Football in Iran. The results of the estimates show that Football is an inferior good and demand for Football is declined in the cities that have greater population. Since the uncertainty of outcome cannot be explained by the demand, the numbers of attendance in match decreases at the end of seasons.