Journal of Economic Research and Policies
Year:2013 | Volume:20 | Issue:64|Papers Count:10

The common aspects of most definitions of social capital are their focus on social relations, which bring about productive benefits. The variety of definitions identified in the literature stem from the highly context- specific nature of social capital and the complexity of its conceptualization and operationalization. Unfortunately there are always limitations on socioeconomic studies around social capital in Iran, which originate from the lack of time-series statistics for social capital of the country. This study seeks to determine the amount of social capital in Iran's provinces by factor analysis method. The results show that in this period, South Khorasan province has had the highest and Tehran province the lowest social capital in Iran.

It is expected that amendments in the price of power plants' fuel result in the increase of electricity price and a reduction in electricity demand, especially in the long run. To assess the quantitative effects of the amendments, we've developed a system dynamics model for the electricity market in Iran consisting of demand, price and generation modules. The model has been simulated for a ten-year period, using powersim software. The results indicate that if the subsidized prices for power plant fuel maintain, electricity shortage of more than 300 terawatt hours shall be unavoidable in 1400. However, price increases, as recently enforced by the Subsidy Reform Law, lead into higher electricity prices and bring equilibrium back into the electricity market. Enforcing value added tax in the electricity market will also result in an extra 5.4% electricity demand reduction.

This paper studies the factors influencing the wage gap of the industries with more than 10 employees, among provinces of Iran, using the new economic geography model. For this purpose, having used the panel data method as well as 2175 observations (435 inter-province gaps during 2003-2007), spatial structure of wages in Iran has been studied. The important indication of the study is that the new economic geography provides a good description of the spatial structure of wages in the provinces of Iran. Since the size of market and inverse distance weighted have positive relationship with wages while prices of non-trade goods have negative effects on the spatial structure of wages, thus, the wage structure is less affected by labor force features or labor productivity than by conditions governing the labor market. The study suggests further attention to the agglomeration and impact of the wages in the economic development programs. It is also necessary to distinguish the provinces with wage disparity as well as the factors affecting disparities, for wise implementation of proper economic policies in order to balance the distribution of income.

This research tries to form an econometric model, using panel data approach, to examine the influence of unemployment and other socio - economic variables on homicide, larceny and suicide. Empirical evidence shows a direct relationship between unemployment and the above- said social abnormalities, though revealing themselves with one or two periodic lags. It should be mentioned that the destructive effects of unemployment exceeds that of inflation, so the anti-unemployment policies take priority over anti-inflationary policies if can not be implemented concurrently.

The study of exchange market pressure and assessing the central bank's intervention in different periods can provide valuable information on the performance of central bank and the efficiency of policies applied in exchange market. This paper aims to estimate the degree of CBI's direct intervention from May 1993 until March 2009 by applying 3SLS method. The main finding of this research suggests that the mean of direct intervention is 0.16 in the period prior to the fixed exchange rate period and 0.33 in the period following that period, when the managed floating exchange rate system was in place. Moreover, the CBI has been frequently leaning against the wind.

This paper studies the validity of Wagner law in selected OIC (Organization of Islamic Conference) member states by classifying them based on their income levels and degrees of corruption. For doing so, the Pesaran Cross-sectional Dependency (CD) test, cross-sectional augmented ADF (CADF) as well as Wasteland and Edgerton's panel co integration tests have been employed. To estimate the coefficients, the continuous-updated and fully modified (CUPFM) estimator has been used. The results confirm validity of Wagner law in all economies, having different income levels and corruption degrees.

This paper analyzes the impacts of inequality in the intra- provincial’s level on economic growth, based on steady state growth model, during (2000-2007). The results indicate that physical capital, human capital, communication networks, openness of the economy, industrial structure, population growth rate, access to the sea, geographical boundaries as well as distance from the capital city are the main influential factors on the economic growth of the provinces. It also affirms the convergence among provinces.

Despite the fact that productivity has long been studied in economic literature, only in recent years it has been considered as the important issue in the Iranian economy and the Fourth Development Plan could be considered as a turning point on looking at it. Based on the Plan, one third of economic growth should come from the productivity improvement so, it is expected to see the results of productivity growth on the performance of economy and the firms. This study aims to examine the impacts of total factor productivity and labor productivity on the survival of new firms in Iranian manufacturing industries. Data of this study comes from the censuses taken by the Statistical Center of Iran in 2000, 2001 and 2002. The firms were divided into two categories of survived and exited firms. Using the Cox hazard model, the impact of productivity on their survival probability has been examined. Contrary to expectation, the results of this paper indicate that total factor productivity does not show a significant positive impact on survival probability of these firms. However, increase in labor productivity significantly increases the survival of new firms. This finding means that labor productivity, which can be considered as a manifestation of human capital in each firm, is very important for the survival of firm, especially in the first year of entry.

The paper estimates and compares the minimum variance optimal hedge ratios (OHR) for gold coin futures contracts traded in Iran Mercantile Exchange (IME), applying various econometric methods. Results of the paper indicate that considering different maturities for futures prices, brings considerable changes to the outcome, in a way that if the first maturity date is regarded as the price for the futures contract, hedge ratios shall exceed that of the second maturity date. The findings also reveal that optimal hedge ratios computed through alternative econometric methods outperform simple hedge strategy (optimal hedge ratio equal one). The final conclusion is that, time-variant optimal hedge ratios derived from GARCH models are not necessarily better capable of reducing the risk, comparing time-invariant optimal hedge ratios.