فصلنامه پژوهش های رشد و توسعه اقتصادی
پیاپی 16 (پاییز 1393)

Volatility in currency exchange rate and the resulting uncertainty is one of the major variables in macroeconomics that affects different economic sectors in various aspects. Since these fluctuations and the resulting uncertainty do not affect all economic sectors in a similar way, this study aims to investigate the effect of uncertainty in the actual currency exchange rate on development of economic sectors in Iran using combined data over the period between 1991 and 2011 through panel method. The results obtained from this study indicate that uncertainty in the exchange rate has negative and significant effects on development of economic sectors. This effect was higher in industry, mining, agriculture, transportation and communication, hotels and restaurants, and construction sector with -0.51, -0.40, -0.35, -0.27,-0.24, and -0.23 respectively.

Keynesian economists has focused on three types of asymmetric effects of monetary policy: (a) asymmetry related to the direction of the monetary policy action (positive and negative), (b) asymmetry related to the size of the monetary policy action (large and small); and (c) asymmetry related to the phase of business cycle in place at the time at which this policy was adopted. This study based on third group, examines the asymmetric effects of monetary gap on inflation in high and low inflation employing a Markov switching regime and P-star model to explain the behavior of inflation in Iran during 1990Q2- 2011Q3. Also, due to the role of money in measuring money stock and monetary gap, simple sum and Divisia monetary aggregates have been used. The results show that the effects of monetary gaps in inflation regimes are not same and investigated asymmetric. Also, these effects in high inflation regimes are weaker than low inflation regimes that it is opposite with conventional view. This matter could be have the reasons as the interruptions of the monetary policy effects, the instability of money demand and more importantly, reduction in velocity of money due to the stagnation in Iran's economy and increase in speculative activities. It is suggested that the Central Bank design the appropriate policies with these regimes. Also, results show that Divisia compared simple sum monetary aggregates is more efficiently. Thus, it seems that Divisia monetary aggregates is a better proxy for examination of the role of money in macroeconomic policies.

The main objective of this paper is to examine the impact of economic growth on coefficient of cardinal welfare in Iran’s economy. Hence, we employ the Bayesian approach and the estimation of forward and backward density functions in order to measure the effect of economic growth spillovers on the social welfare. The paper has applied the Gibbs sampling algorithm which is a rigorous tool for forward simulation so as the results rising from this simulation indicate that there is a positive relationship between economic growth and welfare variables in Iran. It means that the flow of economic growth has had a positive impact on the rise of welfare in the country, such that the average of Bayesian coefficient is near to 0.17 per cent for the change of welfare during the period 1985- 2011. Accordingly, it is recommended that: 1- the policy makers should follow the growth-based strategies 2- the respective officials should identify the effective variables on growth in order to increase growth rate for the economy and eventually, 3- design more efficient institutions for the poor so as they enjoy greater gaining from the growth.

One of the most important macro-economic objectives of the countries is to create the necessary conditions for promoting economic growth. Among them, we can point to political stability and economic freedom. Political instability leads to wasting physical and human resources and social capital, which will be considered as an economic rollback. Also, the rate of economic growth is associated with economic freedom index in every country. Economic freedom can lead to investment encouragment, promotion of skills, transfer of technology and efficient use of the investments through creation of relations of the market economy, private sector development, foreign trade development, remove unnecessary governmental regulations and provide the field for the development of productive activities. So, this study surveys the effects of political stability and economic freedom on economic growth in selected countries during the period 1996-2012. For this purpose, the effect of political stability and economic freedom indicators on economic growth has been tested by using GMM method for dynamic panel data models. The results indicate positive effects and statistically significance of political stability and economic freedom on economic growth in both groups of countries.

The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of social capital on financial development in Iran. To do so, the statistical data were collected during 1984 to 2012 and vector error correction model was used. The number of annually judicial cases about returned checks and liquidity to real gross domestic product ratio were selected as proxies of social capital and financial development respectively. The results derived from Johansen cointegration test indicate that there is a long-run equilibrium relation between social capital and financial development in Iran. Also vector error correction model estimates show that social capital has a positively significant impact on financial development in Iran.

The measurement of social capital is a major challenge in the social capital research. For this purpose researchers employ different methods and techniques. One of these methods is the Resource Generator Technique. In this article we use this technique to measure the elite’s social capital living in Tehran. The emphasize of this technique is on the measurement of individual access to social resources. The level of social capital (access of every elite to social capital resource) was measured using three indices by distributing questionnaires among Tehran’s elites. The results show that among the elites population, access to social resource among males, married persons, people with masters’ degrees and engineering bachelors is more than others. In order to show one of the Resource Generator Technique benefits, the effect of some variables such as age, gender, education and marriage status on social capital was estimated.

In many countries, achieving to the millennium development goals, such as sustainable economic growth, poverty reduction and human development enhancement are their important priorities. One of these goals is to improve the human development index that is used to compare the level of welfare. This study, using the annual data of selected MENA countries from 2000-2012 and by applying Dynamic Panel Data and GMM estimators, wants to determine the factors that affect on human development. For this purpose, trade variable (percapita import, percapita export and per capita trade) has been used in three separated models. The results of the model with n-step GMM estimator of Arellano and Bond (1991) indicate that in all models, trade has positive and significant impact on human development. If percapita import, export and trade are considered as explanatory variables in the model, the increase of $ 10,000 in these variables, will increase human development index by 0.029, 0.024, and 0.025 respectively. Based on the results, educational expenditures, per capita health expenditure and foreign direct investment have also positive and significant effects on human development.