One of the most influential of the national economic indicators is gross domestic product, But since this measure does not consider the costs of eliminating pollution and the negative effects of environmental, has been criticized. In the other word, GDP is not an appropriate criteria for measuring economic welfare, so GREEN GDP has been introduced for measuring of economic welfare. Major objective of GREEN GDP is the accounting systems that are provided an exact and correct criteria of economic welfare. In this paper, to assess the impact of trade liberalization on GREEN GDP, we used the Autoregressive Distributed Lag approach and time series data over the period 1357-1388. The results of estimating model show that increased trade liberalization leads to an increase in GREEN GDP, So that elasticity of GREEN GDP to the trade liberalization in the long term and short term respectively is 0.082 and 0.044.

Nowadays cities benefit from two geographical (natural, social, and economical environments) and artificial (man-made environment, and architecture) symbols. Mankind has always been trying to change these two symbols for the sake of his daily activities or earning his life and establishing a dwelling both as an interest and as a shelter. During this process GREEN areas, jungles, and gardens have been changed into skyscrapers and buildings. Bricks, cement, and metallic plates have replaced for attractive views of nature. Today’s citizens have a sad feeling while they see that they have fallen far from the beauties and quietness of nature.To solve this problem, industrialists have developed the GREEN roof technology. Urban planners and architects use it as a ‘back to nature’ process. GREEN roof is a method to convert the rough, dry, and cold parts of the city into GREEN spots. Besides GREEN roofs can create micro-climatic zones which reduce pollution and improve the living conditions of the citizens.This process is highly advantageous for cities like Tehran which is located in a 730 sq. km. of land delimited by mountains and deserts.67.9 percent of the city is occupied by buildings and about thirteen million people live in this city. GREEN roofs are good means for reducing these problems of Tehran.

As public welfare rises in global level and societies exhibit tendencies toward civil liberties and other aspects of democracy, Economics scholars tend to search for democracy indices and factors affecting democracy. Following this stream, in this article we seek answering the question: Is democracy -as an efficient political system- secured by taxation or by using revenues from natural resources (in particular, oil)? To answer this question, we use panel data model with data from 100 countries between 2008 and 2011. We then analyze the relationship between tax ratio in GDP and democracy index; and compare it with the relationship between ratio of revenue from natural resource in GDP and democracy index. The results show that in 100 countries the tax ratio in GDP definitely has positive effects and significant relationship with democracy index, and the oil revenue ratio in GDP is negatively related with democracy index in such a way that the higher the oil revenue ratio in GDP is (in the oil-producing countries) the lower the democracy index. Similarly, the higher the tax ratio in GDP is (in the industrialized countries), the higher the democracy index.

The spillovers of technology have been considered to Developing Countries in decades. because, these spillovers lead to increase knowledge and create competetive advantages and economic integration. the importance spillovers of technology in this study, by dominating model of Romer convey the effect spillovers of technology through two channels of imports with knowledge and inflows of foreign direct investment on GREEN manufacturing of developing countries by using spatial economic methods in Asia during the period of 1995_2012. In this study, GREEN production was calculated by taking the depreciation of natural resources. According to the results, the impact of expenses of research and development and spillovers of technology throgh the import channel with knowledge is positive and significant. But, the effect of human capital index and spillovers of technology through the channel of inflow of foreign direct investment is negative.

Gross domestic product (GDP) is one of the main macroeconomic variables, But it only covers market value of final goods and services produced in the economy and it does not include negative environmental impacts. On the other hand as a result of trade liberalization, economic activity develops and use of resources and energy inappropriately increases. So, it is demonstrated theoretically that GDP is not a good criterion for measuring the economic wellbeing. Consistently, some measures for calculating national income such as “ GREEN GDP” has been proposed in order to overcome such defects. In this study, gravitational search algorithm and Firefly algorithm are used to evaluate the impact of trade liberalization on GREEN GDP in Iran during 1961-2015. The results show that trade liberalization affects positively and significantly GREEN GDP. Thus, it can be regarded as a pollution-reducing variable. As a result, an increase in the Iran’ s trade relations will lead to improve environmental quality.

A B S T R A C T GREEN city is one of the approaches to sustainable development. “GREEN city” is an environmentally friendly city compatible with the concept of sustainable development and can be used for the welfare and security of its inhabitants. Based on the concept of a “GREEN city,” urban managers try to have the least destructive effect on the ecosystems upon which cities rely. GREEN city is one of the sustainable development approaches that reduce the environmental footprint of cities. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the situation of Mashhad metropolis in terms of the objective characteristics of the GREEN city. In this study, 14 indicators of electricity consumption per capita, GREEN space per capita, population density, water availability, sewage availability, superior public transportation network, urban mass transportation, traffic reduction, annual production waste per capita, carbon monoxide, concentration nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide concentration, particulate matter concentration, and air quality were exerted. To determine the importance of research indicators, the Shannon entropy method, and the status of Mashhad city areas in terms of GREEN city indicators, the VIKOR multi-criteria decision-making method has been applied. The results showed that most areas of Mashhad are average and below average in terms of GREEN city characteristics, and only District 9 is in very good condition (0.636). Also, based on the results of this part of the research, District 5, with the value of VIKOR index of 0.969, is in the last rank in terms of objective characteristics of the GREEN city Extended Abstract Introduction GREEN city is one of the approaches to sustainable development. A “GREEN city” is an environmentally friendly city compatible with the concept of sustainable development and can be used for the welfare and security of its inhabitants. Based on the concept of a “GREEN city,” urban managers try to have the least destructive effect on the ecosystems upon which cities rely. GREEN cities constantly try to manage their environmental effects by reducing waste, increasing recycling, reducing air pollution, increasing population density, developing open urban spaces, and encouraging the development of sustainable local businesses. GREEN cities were first used to evaluate 30 European cities by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) in 2009 with the financial support of Siemens and the aim of reducing the environmental effects of human activities in cities. In that study, eight indices of carbon dioxide, energy, construction, transportation, water, recycling and land use, air quality, and environmental governance were used. Later, the Economist Intelligence Unit, with the financial support of Siemens, evaluated the status of the GREEN city index in 17 Latin American cities, 15 African cities, 22 major Asian cities, and 27 cities in United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. In recent years, even some Western Islamic scholars have, in various publications, shown that Islam is an ecological religion. In Iran, the issue of protecting the environment has not received much attention regardless of its rich cultural and religious background and its confirmation in Article 50 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Mashhad is the second metropolis of Iran, located in North-East of Iran, and is one of the counties of Khorasan Razavi Province. According to the 2016 Iranian Population and Housing Census, its population was 3057679 people (The Vice-Presidency of Planning and Development of Mashhad Municipality). In Mashhad, due to several reasons including the presence of Imam Reza Shrine (PBUH) and arrival of millions of pilgrims per year, population growth, increased garbage production (production of 896534 tons of garbage in 2016 (The Vice-Presidency of Planning and Development of Mashhad Municipality), air pollution (increased number of unhealthy days from 46 days per year in 2015 to 88 days in 2016 for sensitive groups and 4 days of unhealthy air for all groups in 2016 (Center for Monitoring Environmental Pollutants of Mashhad Municipality) the 2025 vision of the city has paid attention to the environment in the form of five general objectives; however, just like the national level, no specific pattern for environmentally-compatible urban development, such as GREEN city, is determined. Analysis of the GREEN city index in Mashhad metropolis can considerably contribute to urban managers and planners in addition to providing a pattern for evaluating the present situation in other cities of Iran and improving the quality of life regardless of the current status of the urban environment in Iranian cities; we can preserve these environments as parts of the natural environment for future generations.   Methodology In terms of its goal, the present study is an applied one; in the study, drawing upon other studies and library sources and considering the conditions of Iran and the metropolis of Mashhad in terms of GREEN city, 14 quantitative indices were exerted. To this end, the required data for the quantitative indices was gathered by library research from the relevant institutions. Next, the weights of quantitative indices were determined using Shannon's entropy. Then, using the VIKOR method of multi-criteria decision-making, the status of various districts of the metropolis of Mashhad in terms of quantitative indices of GREEN city was determined. Finally, the map of the spatial distribution of quantitative indices was drawn using the ARC GIS software package.   Results and discussion In this study, to analyze the status of the metropolis of Mashhad in terms of GREEN city features, 14 quantitative indices were used. Considering the value of the VIKOR index ranges from 0 to 1, various districts of Mashhad can be classified into five categories; very satisfactory, satisfactory, average, unsatisfactory, and very unsatisfactory in terms of quantitative indices of GREEN city. The results of the current situation of Mashhad showed that in terms of objective indicators of the GREEN city, District 9 of Mashhad metropolis with a value of VIKOR index of 0.056 is in first place, and the seventh region with a value of VIKOR index of 0.433 is in second place. Also, based on the results of this part of the research, District 5, with the value of VIKOR index of 0.969, is in the last rank in terms of objective characteristics of the GREEN city.   Conclusion Similarly, the results of studies by Afshar (2011) and Shabani et al. (2017) on Tehran metropolis are indicative of the unsatisfactory situation of Tehran (the biggest metropolis of Iran) in terms of GREEN city features. Comparing the results of the studies by Afshar (2011) and Shabani et al. (2017) with the present study on Mashhad (the second biggest metropolis of Iran) reveals the necessity for a comprehensive plan toward achieving GREEN cities. It should be mentioned that, due to the specific conditions of Mashhad metropolis and availability or unavailability of the required data, the indices used in the present study are somewhat different from the ones used by Afshar (2011) and Shabani et al. (2017).   Funding There is no funding support.   Authors’ Contribution All of the authors approved the content of the manuscript and agreed on all aspects of the work.     Conflict of Interest Authors declared no conflict of interest.   Acknowledgments We are grateful to all the scientific

In this paper, we examine all the macroeconomic time series which can be considered as potential leading indicators of the state of real activity in Iran, to find the best leading indicators. According to Einian and Barakchian (1393), Nonoil GDP show the fluctuations of real activity in Iran better than other variables. Hence, in our study we consider Non-oil GDP as the target variable and the dating of the business cycles are identified following Einian and Barakchian (1393). 265 macroeconomic variables, obtained from the data sets released by the Central Bank of Iran, are used to construct 1590 potential leading indicators; 6 kinds of transformations are applied to each variable in order to generate 1590 series. These time series are quarterly series which span the period of 1367Q1 to 1387Q2. The number of Missing Points, False Alarm Points, Late Alarm Points, Concordance, and Standard Deviation in forecasting peaks and troughs are used as the main criteria to evaluate the potential leading indicators. The results show that no variable does well in terms of all the criteria; however, there exist 20 variables which performs well in forecasting peaks and troughs and there exist 6 variables which perform well in terms of the standard deviation of the forecasts. Therefore, selecting a set of potential leading indicators to construct a composite leading indicator for non-oil GDP depends entirely on the importance of each criterion for the institutes/researchers who develop the composite leading indicator. We also evaluate the potential leading indicators based on their release lags in the Central Bank's publications. Samaee and Atrianfar (1390) have shown that the national accounts' data have the longest lag (more than 6 months on average), and therefore, we suggest to diminish their role in constructing the composite leading indicator.

Because of the importance of the unpredictable changes in government expenditure on gross domestic production, this paper tries to evaluate the effects of the government expenditure shocks on gross domestic product in Iran. To do this, at the first stage, government expenditure shocks are driven by the Hodrick-Prescott Filter. Then using these shocks, considered model will be estimated. The method of model estimation is auto-regressive distributed lag (ARDL). The effect of the lag of gross domestic product on current GDP is positive and significant. While the second lag of this variable on current GDP is negative. Only the third lag of government expenditure shocks has the significant effect on current GDP. That is, if the government expenditure shocks happen, it will affect the GDP after three years. According to the results, the coefficient of this variable is negative. So there is a converse relationship between government expenditure shock and gross domestic product. If there will be a one-unit shock in government expenditure, after three periods (year), gross domestic product will decrease 0.84 units.