JOURNAL OF SUSTAINABLE GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT (THE ECONOMIC RESEARCH)
Year:2005 | Volume:5 | Issue:16|Papers Count:10

In Order to analyze the efficacy of Islamic economic theories, it is necessary to produce adequate theoretical structures for them. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to address some basic challenges and questions. This will also include theories related to different branches of knowledge as well as Islamic economy. The present article intends to deal with such issues, and is divided into an introduction and three sections addressing primary questions, fundamentals and assumptions, as well as theory development. On consequences of this paper is that Islamic economics (as a scientific discipline) does have the capability of producing consistent theories. It also consists of verifying system for evaluating its theories.

Mega-cities are among the most recent forms of human habitat. Variety and extreme internal complexities in both spatial and anatomical as well as functional aspects are the real roots of “the problem of management of mega-cities”. The basic question here is which governance formation can be the most suitable one for such places. In response to this question, two models are proposed: Urban government and urban governance.The establishment of mega-cities in Iran, and more specifically in Tehran, and problems associated with such formations, has made the question of the management of such cities of a serious concern. Although so far no organizational-institutional framework has been proposed for the management of such regions, the current views and practices can be put within the framework of urban government, which is in contrast with urban governance views.This paper tries to present a review of related theoretical and conceptual frameworks, come up with an understanding and evaluation of Tehran’s governing scheme, and explain the necessities for following an urban governance model in Tehran.

In this study a short-run non-homothetic translog cost function is employed to investigate the Iranian thermal electric power generation demand for fuels (gas oil, fuel oil and natural gas) and their substitutability. A model including fuel shares is specified for this purpose. Time series data and Zellner’s iterative seemingly unrelated regression (ISUR) is used to estimate the model. Results of this study are as follow:-Mean own and cross price elasticities of fuels are very low and less than unity.-Morishima elasticities show that all the fuels have rather low short-run substitutability.-The evidence supports the presence of an induced exogenous technical change which is non-neutral (natural gas using, but fuel oil, gas oil saving).-The elasticities of the average fuel productivities are less than one, which show the average fuel productivities are insensitive to the changes in output level.-The results indicate that the pattern of scale effect is natural gas saving, but fuel oil, gas oil using.-Gas oil and fuel oil are sensitive and natural gas is insensitive to the changes in output level.-The result of the likelihood ratio test indicates rejection of the null hypothesis which could be interpreted as ineffectiveness of the system load factor on the overall fuel choice.-The system load factor elasticities for the fuel shares are more than one, which show elastic demand for three fuels with respect to annual volume of system load factor.

Nowadays taking into account economical aspects of education is very important. One of the main sections in educational economy is paying attention to budget – provision and allocation of funds. In this respect, making use of modern and exact mathematical programming methods for optimized distribution of development funds is necessary .In this regard, a Linear Weighting Goal Programming Model, in lieu of city program, has been designed for development funds distribution in Gilan province’s educational system.In our reviewing of literature we came across two indispensable indicators. One is the exploitation index of class and the other is the accumulation index of students in a class. According to the target function, these two indices would be minimized in the model to determine model restrictions. Some factors have been considered as fund restrictions. These are the number of students in each class, the restriction of educational space utilization and class buildings. At the end the proposed model was solved for the 16 cities of the province using Lingo software. This model can be used to give insights to the long run objectives of the Third Economic Development Program in a five-year period.

Developing countries have similar characteristics in terms of their economic structure, for example in their production forms, which encompass traditional and agriculture products. To move from traditional products to the industrial phase and its concomitant economic development processes, import of appropriate technology could play an important role in social and industrial reforms. So, a good recognition of effects of technology (including import of capital and intermediate goods) on economic growth is very important. In this paper, the effects of technology on economic growth has been surveyed in both short and long -run, during 1971-2003, making use of Johanson - Jusilius cointegration approach.Results show that there is no causality from intermediate imports on non-oil GDP in short –run; however, capital imports have a weak effect on non-oil GDP. The effect of intermediate and capital inputs on economic growth is significant (0.5) in long – run.

This study examines the long-run policies and plans of oil export, natural gas and oil products based on energy flow optimization model with environmental considerations. In this study the global markets of natural gas and oil products have been examined in detail and an optimal export combination for the country's energy for a 25-year period has been determined. To this end, it has used three price scenarios of continuing the business as usual, price increase as well as price decrease. Also the study has used three scenarios of deprecation rate; average, high and low, respected. The results confirm the fact that –generally- exporting gasoline, gasoline, fuel oil, jet fuel, condensate and natural gas is of economic priority in the optimal program.It is recommended that the natural gas be exported in both pipeline and LNG methods of transportation in the optimal program. Production equal to domestic consumption for the Kerosene-based products and imports for naphtha are recommended. The crud oil export compared with product export has no priority and its conversion to products is more suitable due to a higher added value. The results of this study also show that products export has more profitability for the country in comparison with natural gas exports.

Throughout the history man has considered gold as a precious metal and consequently its price forecast has been of importance to him. In the past, not many intelligent, innovative approaches to price forecast were applied, and traditional methods of forecast, such as Regression, ARIMA, Exponential Smoothing, Moving Average, and methods of this kind were extensively used. Only recently Artificial Intelligence, Neural Networks and Fuzzy Logic have been proposed as forecast models. In this paper, after considering the role of gold in international finance, its demand and supply, and the relationship between gold and Dollar ,factors affecting its price fluctuations are considered and a Neuro-Fuzzy approach based on the Takagi-Sugeno Model is employed to forecast gold price. The results obtained by this method are compared with Regression Analysis, which show that a Neuro-Fuzzy yield a better and a more promising forecast.