The purpose of this study was to predict the demands for higher education in Iran until 2025. For this reason two methods of Cohort Population and Participation Rate in higher education were used. The demand for Iran's higher education was predicted by gender, undergraduate and graduate classifications. The results demonstrated that the undergraduate applicants for higher education are declining in next 14 years in a such way that in 2025 the number of applicants for undergraduate level will be declining to about six hundred thousand individuals, that is half of the current applicants. Decreasing graduate applicants demand begins after next two or three years and it will roughly remain the same as current level in 2025.

Financial integration is the process through which the financial markets of two or more countries or regions becomes more inter-connected to each other. This process can take many forms, including cross-border capital flows, foreign participation in domestic markets, sharing of information and practices among financial institutions, and unification of market infrastructures. Financial integration can have a regional or global dimension, depending on whether a country’ s financial market is more closely linked to neighboring countries or to global financial centers/institutions. This paper examines the scope for further global and regional financial integration in OPEC countries in the period of 2005 to 2017, based on economic fundamentals and comparisons with emerging regions, and quantifies the potential macroeconomic gains that such integration could bring. By using Philips and Sul model, which uses a nonlinear time-varying factor model, this paper provides a comprehensive picture of the financial systems within OPEC by testing the convergence of their capital markets together with their Stock Traded Value (% GDP) and money markets with Lending Interest Rate and Deposit Interest Rate. The empirical findings show that the OPEC financial markets do not form a homogenous convergence club. The striking divergence revealed by our analysis emphasizes the different levels of development within the OPEC financial markets. Furthermore, Iran has convergence with Venezuela, Iraq and Nigeria in money market because of their similar economic structure such as their banks efficiency. Iran also has integrations with Emirate and Saudi Arabia in capital market dueto the relation between voality in oil price and value of their stock markets in the period of the research.

Privatization aims to improve productivity and profitability of firms in different sectors of the economy. However, studies show that the impacts of privatization on productivity is mixed. The main objective of this study is examine the effects of privatization on the financial and economic performance of privatized companies in Iran. We consider two variables of labor productivity and profitability in privatized companies as the performance indicators. Findings from a Panel data model including 22 selected privatized companies during 2000 to 2010 show a positive and significant impact of privatization on labor productivity and profitability in privatized companies. Also, using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test we find a significant difference before and after privatization in the mentioned variables. JEL Classification: C33, D24, L33

This study intends to investigate the role of Islamic events on the relationship between investor sentiment and stock returns by emphasizing the role of corporate governance. The specific Islamic events in this study include the holy months of Ramadan and Muharram. The variables in corporate governance include the size of the board of directors, the presence/absence of CEO on board of directors, corporate auditing, the internal auditors, the financial experts’ assistance and auditors’ reports. The research sample consists of 132 companies observed over a period extending from 14/8/1392 in Solar Hijri Calendar (1/1/1435, i. e. the first of Muharram in Lunar Calendar) to 19/6/1397 (SH) (29/12/1439, i. e. the last day of Dhu al-Hijjah (LH)). In this study, Multivariate Regression Model for panel data was used to analyze the data and test the hypotheses. The research results indicate a significant difference between investor sentiment, on the one hand, and stock returns on the other during Islamic months of Ramadan and Muharram compared to other months. Corporate governance plays a moderating role in the relationship between investor sentiment and stock returns during the months of Ramadan and Muharram. In other words, corporate governance prevents investors from making sentimental decisions originating from Islamic events and affecting stock returns.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) and increased trade volume have been known as resources for capital accumulation and economic growth in developing countries. FDI and trade are also associated with technology transfer, linkages with international markets, and transfer of management skills. However, increasing economic growth requires higher energy consumption, which leads to environmental degradation in these countries. This study probes the effect of foreign direct investment and trade openness on Carbon dioxide emissions (as an indicator of environmental quality) and clean energies in the selected developing countries using a panel-ARDL approach during 1971-2014. The findings of this study reveal that despite the positive and significant effects of direct foreign investment on economic growth and the use of clean energy, they have no significant effect on the environmental degradation in these countries. The results also show that trade openness has a positive and significant correlation with carbon dioxide emissions, while this variable has a negative and significant effect on clean energy consumption. Finally, the results of the study indicate that the speed of adjustment towards long-term equilibrium in this model is relatively slow.

Introduction: Spatial autocorrelation is a known phenomenon in ecological studies that refer to the relationship between certain variables observed in different localities. Whereas correlation statistics were designed to show the relationship between variables, autocorrelation statistics are designed to show the correlations within variables, and spatial autocorrelation shows the correlation within variables across space. Most natural ecological phenomena display spatial autocorrelation found at all spatial scales.

The purpose of this article is to investigate the effect of economic, social and political aspects of globalization on economic welfare in 50 selected countries from three income groups in the time between 2005 and 2015. For this purpose, economic welfare was been calculated using the Index of Economic Well-Being (IEWB). The results in four frame with panel data method indicated that in high-income countries, economic and social aspect of globalization had significant positive effect on economic welfare while political globalization had no statistically significant effect. While, in the middle-income countries only economic aspect of globalization has significant positive effect on economic welfare. In low-income countries also, economic welfare is affect inversely from economic and political globalization and political globalization has not significant effect on welfare. In general, one can say that non-political aspects of globalization were been affected on economic welfare in the selected countries. Income per capita had a significant positive effect on economic welfare, but inflation had no significant effect on economic welfare. Based on the results an increase in the economic relations is recommend in high and middle-income countries.

The Grossman and Kruger’s study (1991) about the relationship between economic growth and environmental quality drew the attention of many researchers and international institutions. Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) has been extracted from the study of Kuznets (1955), who believed that there is an inverted U-Shape relationship between economic growth and income inequality. Environmental Kuznets Curve was introduced based on a similar relationship, i.e. in the first steps of economic growth and with increase in per capita income, pollution gradually increases. When per capita income reaches to its turning point, pollution reaches to its peak. If increasing the per capita income continues, pollution mitigates and environmental quality increases.

This study examines the impact of financial development on the relationship between human capital and economic growth in selected developing and developed countries during 1980-2016. The fundamental question is whether financial development can strengthen/weaken the impact of human capital on economic growth? Model estimation is performed in two steps. First, the effect of human capital on economic growth has been estimated using the rolling regression method. In the second step, the human capital coefficients extracted from the rolling regression of the first step, have been regressed on the multidimensional index of financial development in two separate groups of developing and developed countries, using a panel data model. This multidimensional index is calculated as a weighted average of seven financial development indices using the principal component analysis method. The findings show that the increase in human capital mostly increases the economic growth, and besides that, the increase in financial development, strengthens the impact of human capital on economic growth. This strengthening is more in developing countries than in developed countries. These findings imply that achieving higher growth rates, especially in developing countries, depends on the optimal combination of sufficiently high levels of human capital and financial development.Keywords: Rolling regression, Financial development, Human capital, Economic growth, Panel data

Due to the different climate in our country, different patterns of demand for electricity are discussed. Thus, in this research we estimate and compare this residential electricity demand function for both colder and warmer states with the national average In Warm regions 15 provinces and in cold regions 13 provinces have taken place. The criteria of these grouping was the average temperature of the total country in 1388. Province that the average temperature of them is higher than these average have taken place in Warm and the provinces that the average temperature is lower have taken place in cold provinces Duration of our study was the period between 1379-1388, and we have used the GMM method to estimate the model. This method is applied on an explicit function of energy demand in the utility function Our results show that the comparison between elasticity of residential demand for electricity power in the Warm region and the previous period of electricity power consumption, income, electricity prices, the average temperature in spring, summer, respectively are 0. 76, 0. 13,-0. 19-,-0. 26, 0. 47,-0. 19, 0. 08, and respectively in cold provinces are 0. 64, 0. 18,-0. 32,-0. 27, 0. 29,-0. 29, 0. 03 JEL classification: Q41, C33 Key word: residential demand for electricity, hot and cold provinces.