پژوهشنامه بازرگانی
پیاپی 58 (بهار 1390)

The energy subsidy has a remarkable share of GDP (about 10 percent) in Iranian economy, and its reducing affects inflation which its estimation can help policymakers to make the best decision. Thus, this study employs the social accounting matrix in order to study about the inflation effected by increasing the prices of energy. The importance of this method is that we can estimate the exceptional and psychological effects of inflation by regarding the families life cost indicators as much as price indicators in different product sectors. The estimated inflation which is resulted by adjusted prices will be 36.8 percent. Since the amount of energy subsidies and their effects has become a critical problem in Iranian economy, Iranian government, like other countries, must prepare an improved, complete and systematic program regarding financial limitation, a suitable social security system and the improvement of energy consumption function in production and transportation sectors.

Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) play an important and increasing role in the economy today, and expanding e-commerce in these enterprises can reduce costs and boost their activities. This paper addresses the status of e-commerce implementation in the Iranian industrial SMEs. It begins to examine the concept of e-commerce implementation from various aspects and different approaches. Some indices used to measure e-commerce implementation in different countries and in a number of papers have also been considered. Based on behavioral approaches and with the emphasis on ‘soft’ implementation, a model of e-commerce implementation in the Iranian industrial SMEs has been introduced. The model measures intention to use e-commerce, introductory applications, computer and network communications, informational implementation, transactional implementation, and strategic implementation. A classification of industrial SMEs was made and a selected country-wide sample was surveyed by using a questionnaire, and the data collected was analyzed. Furthermore, the implementation e-commerce profile in the Iranian industrial SMEs was presented, and a comparison among enterprises belonging to various industrial fields, and different geographical regions was drawn. The results show that while the potential grounds for using e-commerce exist in these SMEs, the tendency to use it is less than average, introductory applications are more than average, application of computer and network communications are at about low level, and informational, transactional, and strategic implementation is relatively very low.

Review of recent financial crisis effects on developing countries show that countries with high degrees of trade openness, dependence on export earnings, concentrated export markets and low level of trade diversification, were affected more. After introducing four “seasonal”, “trend growth rates”, “sub-sector crisis” and “export crisis” indices, this paper studies the impacts of the global crisis on 28 sub-sectors of IRAN non-oil export economy using forecasting and projection techniques. Result of this study clusters these 28 sub-sectors to three low, medium and high damaged groups. Computation of the indices shows that “high-tech” and “agricultural” sub-sectors are in low damaged group. Also, trend of export crisis index show that after starting the crisis in 2007Q4, IRAN economy has confronted with a small negative impact (-12.5%) from 2008Q1 to 2008Q3, then a small favorable impact (12.36%) from 2008Q4 to 2009Q1 and finally a severe negative impact (-45.5%) from 2009Q2 to 2009Q4.

The phenomenon of globalization is one of the most debated issues facing countries in today’s world. There are many different opinions concerning this issue. Investigation of the extensive impacts of this process on different dimensions of human life in political, economic, social and cultural spheres has been preoccupying thinkers, politicians, economists and cultural experts around the world. This study has evaluated various effects of economic globalization on total labor demand broken into skilled and unskilled labor in Iran. In this study we use two models of ARDL and GMDH neural network and also two indexes of foreign direct investment and openness as indicators of globalization for investigating and forecasting the effects of globalization on the labor market. The study based on ARDL approach in the 1353-1385 period shows that globalization indexes have a positive impact on labor demand, but they do not have much impact on labor demand in the short run with this effect becoming increasingly significant in the long run. Also these impacts are greater on the demand of skilled labor than unskilled labor. Finally this study indicates that in all cases, GMDH neural network is a more efficient approach in forecasting employment impacts than ARDL.

In this paper we aims to answer: to what extent can monetary policy variables and other economic indicators predict the changes in housing price bubble. Therefore, we use VAR model with quarterly data from (1371-1386) for Iran. Our results represent the formation of bubble, differ from booms and busts cycles. House price bubbles seem to be equally sensitive to a positive shocks in liquidity and construction cost and they are sensitive to a negative shocks in exchang rate and interest rate and stock price index. The effect of monetary policy is the most important and effective variables on house bubble. Effect of construction cost in (1374-1377) cycles is more than other cycles. Effect of stock price index in (1383-1386) cycles are more than other cycles. Our results indicate that monetary authority should tighten when house price bubble are inflating and should ease when house price bubble collapse.

The paper aims to find out how WTO accession process affects economic policies and Institutions in acceding countries. It shows that the process of obtaining WTO membership, under certain circumstances, can lead to substantial improvements in economic policies and institutions. Considering analytical indices, there is a significant gap between Iran and the newly acceded members of WTO in economic policies and institutions infrastructure and quality. Finally, the paper presents some policy implications including obligatory adjustments to improve Iran economic policies and institutions aiming a successful accession process to WTO.

Developing countries efforts to integrate into the global economy are following with the aim to increase the level of domestic economy productivity, improving growth outlook and increasing standards of life by increasing trade flows, technology and investment. But not all regional integrations were necessarily successful, or at least with the same degree of success. in this paper we have examine the degree of some selected regional integration success in a comparative study. These regional integrations includes MERCOSUER and NAFTA in America, SADC in Africa, EU in Europe and ASEAN, ECO and SARC in Asia which are ranked based on the economic, trade and trade facilitation indicators. Based on the findings of this study, MERCOSUR, EU, ASEAN, NAFTA, SADC, ECO and SARC are ranked respectively as a successful regional integration.

Inspection of a company may be internal and or external. On the problems concerning inspection regime of the companies, some authors have developed some views which all are not approved. Getting abandoned section 144 of the commerce amendment Act of 1969 implemented is by some deemed as strengthening the inspection in public limited companies. But that useless action if applied would result in state intervention in company affairs, increase in bureaucracy in formation and operation of them, imposing charges to them and therefore to consumers and lead in spreading of commercial secrets among the companies. In addition to natural persons, judicial persons (auditing institutes) as well are allowed to undertake the legal inspection of the state and public companies but private companies (other than cooperatives) can merely appoint natural persons as inspectors. The contract between a company and its inspector is an “inspection contract” to which the regulations contained in the articles of association, resolutions of the general assemblies, regulations specifically designed by law for inspectors and laws on the agency contract are respectively applicable. It is a revocable contract and dismissal of the inspector is not subject to proving the inspector’s fault and of course, it should not be so. General assemblies may in addition to the inspector deploy an expert or some experts to investigate the affairs of the company and operations of the managers. In case, there was such a right for holders of a fixed amount of stock, e.g. holders of 10 % of the capital, the problem on deprivation of the minority stockholders from having a share in management of the company could be to some extent solved. In English law, there is no legal duty for appointment of inspectors by the companies. Instead, department of trade and indus try is to make investigations required in the affairs of the companies. In Iran, making such a control in respect to the private companies lay on the registrar of companies, stock exchange organization, guilds and their unions. Beneficiary also looks after the operation of the company through the court. External inspection to the operations of the state and public companies lays on the general inspection organization, the supreme audit court and the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Finance. The general inspection organization looks also after the operation of the public companies. In Iran, companies’ inspection regime has faced with only a few acceptable criticisms which can be adhered by tiny amendments into related Acts. Iranian taught authors sympathetic to external inspection regime, have ignored that the countries following that regime lack the internal inspection requirement for their companies. Applying both these regimes altogether is not common, and entering external regime into Iranian legal system, with regard to its various financial and administrative charges, is not at all advisable.