نشریه تحلیل های اقتصادی توسعه ایران
سال سوم شماره 4 (پیاپی 9، زمستان 1394)

In the past decade, the subject of the natural resources’ curse was raised due to the poor performance of countries having rich natural resources compared to countries with poor natural resources. It was expected that countries with abundant natural resources would have better performance. Nevertheless, empirical evidence indicated the contrary results. It seems abundance of natural resources in these countries is a curse rather than a blessing. Using panel data, this research investigates the correlation between the abundance of natural resources and good governance indicator as a measure of institutional development in developing countries during 1996- 2014. The robust statistical evidence confirms the negative impact of abundance of natural resources on the overall governance quality (average of six indicators of good governance) and good governance indicators in developing countries. The estimation results suggest that the logarithm of GDP per capita, tax revenues, and grants have positive effects on the governance quality, but logarithm of the population has significant negative effect on dependent variable. In addition, a breakdown of developing countries into two groups of countries with high per capita income and low-income indicated that countries with high per capita income have been more successful in channelizing resource rent towards better governance, economic growth and development.

Education has an important role in empowerment of the women and decreasing the educational inequality between men and women. This paper aims to find the impact of government expenditure on gender development index in education and gender inequality in education. In order to test the research hypotheses, the data of the government expenditure on education, gender inequality in education, gender education development index, openness, GDP per capita and dummy variable for democracy among the selected MENA countries are used in a panel data model for the 1990-2010 period. The results show that, an increase in government expenditure has a significant positive impact on the gender development index in education. Therefore, the situation for women is improved with an increase in government expenditure on education. When public spending increases, men than women will get more educational opportunities. In this case, women gender inequality in education is decreased, which means higher gender inequality in education

Due to high dependence on oil revenues, fluctuations of oil prices have great effects on the Iranian economy, since the bulk of oil revenues belongs to the government, and forms the current and development expenditure. As a result, determining the severity of impact of oil price fluctuations on the Gini coefficient is very important. This study examines the asymmetric effects of oil price volatility on the Gini coefficient with Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) in Iran during 1978-2013. For this purpose, the Gini coefficient, GDP in 2004 prices, tax revenue, the real government expenditure, inflation rate, unemployment rate and positive and negative changes in oil prices are entered to model. The results reveal that both positive and negative fluctuations caused by changes in oil prices affect the Gini coefficient, and positive effect of fluctuations in oil prices is higher than the negative effect of fluctuations in oil prices.

With the expansion of the concept of capital including physical capital and human capital, the factors other than labor and physical capital were identified in explaining the economic growth. One of such factors is total factor productivity, which may influenced by knowledge. This study evaluates the knowledge-based economy factors affecting the economic growth in Iran during 1975-2012. To do this, the Autoregressive Distributed Lags (ARDL) method is used. The results indicate positive and statistically significant relationships among economic regime and institutional quality pillar (exports of goods and services), information and communication technology infrastructure pillar (number of fixed telephone lines per thousand persons), innovation pillar (imports of goods and services as a proxy for external R&D spillovers), and economic growth. The findings represent a negative and statistically significant relation between the ratio of R&D expenditure to GDP (internal R&D spillovers) and the economic growth. In addition, existence of a statistically significant relation between human capital stock /education Pillar (number of students) and economic growth is not confirmed.

In this research, the effect of labor, credit and business regulations on economic growth is investigated in a sample of developing and developed countries during 2000-2012. To do this, an endogenous growth model is estimated using panel data approach. Data on labor, credit and business regulations are derived from fifth subcomponent of Economic Freedom Index of Fraser Institute. Higher values of this subcomponent is related to improvement in quality of labor, credit and business regulations and more economic freedom. Based on economic theory and literature review, it is expected that improved quality of labor, credit and business regulations has a positive effect on economic growth. In general, results show that improvement in quality of labor, credit and business regulations affects economic growth positively among all sample countries and especially among high-income countries because these countries have stronger institutions. In addition, out of three components of labor, credit, and business regulations, the component related to labor market regulations has the most positive effect on economic growth; however, the effects of the other two components are not significant.

This study aims to evaluate the effect of electronic banking on holding currency by people, because the fast development of electronic banking is currently unavoidable subject in Iran. In e-banking, electronic transactions have been substituted for physical money transactions. This study explores whether electronic banking practice in Iran has reduced the amount of holding currency. Decreasing currency holdings increase the volume of bank deposits and the authority of regulatory and monetary policy-making by central bank and reduce the risks of money laundering. This study uses quarterly data from 2005 to 2014, Johansen-Juselius co-integration approach and Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) to analyze the long-term effects of e-banking development on the volume of currency in circulation. The results show that increasing volume of Point-of-sale (POS) devices in the long term has a significant and negative impact on the volume of currency while increasing use of Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs) has a significant and positive impact on holding currency.