نشریه اقتصاد و تجارت نوین
پیاپی 2 (پاییز 1384)

The long process of Iran's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) has started as Iran obtained the observer status recently in the WTO. One of the main WTO requirements is to review and examine the compatibility of current applicant regulations with the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). The GATS is one of the obligatory agreements of the WTO and accordingly the Iranian legislation is required to ratify GATS as well. This article first reviews the provisions of the GATS as the Preliminary legal instrument of services in international trade and then examines its compatibility with the current Iranian laws and regulations. The article concludes that with respect to the GATS flexibility in nature, the Iranian legal system is capable to meet the requirements of the WTO in respect to GATS.

This paper explores what are the main determinants of total factor productivity (TFP) growth of the commerce sector in Iran. The analysis is performed using annual data over the period 1959 - 2003. This paper takes a fresh empirical look at the main determinants of TFP growth in the commerce sector where the TFP growth is negative on average and is associated with substantial variance over the period of the study. We try to disentangle the impact of human capital, physical capital, real exchange rate, and inflation on TFP growth. The production model is first specified in terms of the level of variables and then the TFP growth model is specified in terms of rates of change in the variables except real exchange rate which is stationary. The Coefficients of the explanatory variables turn out to be highly significant in the regression. The results presented in this paper are clear. Human capital, physical capital, and real exchange rate have positive effects while the rate of inflation has a negative effect on the TFP growth of the commerce sector in Iran. The TFP model shows that there are two outliers and one dummy variable in the model and their coefficients are statistically different from zero.

The aim of this article is to analyze the barriers for implementing Information Technology (IT) in the Iranian tourism industry. Electronic tourism uses IT in traveling and tourism. This study is an applied one, using descriptive and survey methods. The findings of the study show that among 26 factors, classified in six main factors: managerial, human resource, cultural-social, organizational-structural, technological and environmental factors. The results confirm that four main factors have significant function for implementing IT in the Iranian tourism industry. These factors include human resource, cultural-social, technological and environmental factors.

Promoting gender equality is an essential component of effective economic and human development strategic goals. Despite all efforts to eliminate gender gap in national and international levels, various forms of inequality still exist around the world even in the developed countries. Inequality is stronger in the developing countries in the comparison with the developed countries and this is one of the elements enhancing their poverty. This paper investigates the effects of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on gender inequality. Panel data estimates are employed based on the country random effects using the World Bank data over the period 2000-2002. The findings of the paper show that increases in the level of ICT infrastructure tend to be improved gender equality using the education and employment measures.

The last decade has witnessed a dramatic increase in the number and the market share of electronic trading in the stock market over the world, since electronic trading has improved the efficiency of stock markets and hence has reduced the cost of providing liquidity. It does offer lower operating costs and the possibility of remote access to the market. This paper addresses the issue of electronic stock trading system in Iran. More specifically, we extend our understanding of the role of electronic stock market and discuss the implications of the results for the designing of electronic trading systems in the country. The results of this paper show that the electronic stock trading faces with the lack of sufficient infrastructures such as information and communication technology (ICT), electronic banking, electronic commerce, and regulations. Therefore, it is required improving hardware, software, and physical infrastructures in the country. The results of this paper can be used by financial and economic policymakers, capital market decision makers to implement ICT in the stock exchange markets.