توسعه منطقه ای

The policy maker's goal at the macro level is to promote knowledge-based activities in different regions of the country and the balanced development of the provinces. The current study focuses on the concept of intelligent specialization with the aim of supporting knowledge-based companies and developing their activities. Based on this approach, innovative activities in the provinces should be focused on competitive advantages, potential capacities and value chains in the region.Therefore, this research emphasizes on supporting knowledge-based companies in accordance with the conditions of the region and with the aim of directing activities in the priority areas of the region. Focusing on Hormozgan province, this study has investigated the priority areas and advantages of the region through the study of official provincial documents, including Hormozgan province's plan document and the province's strategic problem-solving document. Then, through interviews with 21 activists in the field, it identified the challenges faced by knowledge-based companies. Thematic analysis method was used to analyze the data and by coding the concepts extracted from the interviews and policy texts, the meaningful pattern of the themes was determined based on the collected data.In the first step of the research, the priority and attractive areas of the province were determined. Then, the field of activity of knowledge-based companies was investigated and based on the attractiveness-capability matrix, areas of activity with high attractiveness, high ability, and high attractiveness, low ability were identified. The results showed that the development of knowledge-based activities in the region requires that things like facilitating the licensing of active companies in priority areas, helping to complete the supply chain in the relevant area, justifying actors to support companies in emphasized areas and using the knowledge of other provinces in relevant areas should be followed up.

The purpose of this article is to study the capacities and challenges of development of Sistan border region and development strategies of these regions in different fields. This research has been done by Thematic analysis method and data have been collected through field observation and in-depth interviews with 14 executive and academic experts. The results show that Sistan and Baluchestan province has capacities such as: wind and solar renewable energy, neighborhood with It has Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc. On the other hand, it has challenges such as successive droughts and lack of water supply from Afghanistan, marginalization and .... After describing and analyzing the above cases with the method of Thematic analysis, solutions in different areas have been presented to overcome the challenges and use the capacities of the region; Including the entry of quasi-governmental institutions into the industrial sector to support the region's infant industries, increase economic interactions with the neighboring country in order to provide water resources, Invest in skill-based education and...

Today, many countries, considering their domestic capacities and international opportunities, are trying to build a national brand in order to improve their national identity and present a powerful and inspiring image in foreign minds. The progress and development of Makran coasts relies on having a unique regional development strategy (RDS) whose requirements are derived from the upstream documents and general policies of the country. The main research question is what is the position of the concept of national brand in the regional development model of Makran coast based on upstream documents? The current research, using the method of thematic analysis, examined the upstream documents and selected general policies of the country and concluded eight requirements in the regional development model of Makran. The results show that in the eyes of policymakers, the realization of the development of Makran coast depends on the formulation of national plans based on regional advantages, the transformation of the Makran region into a set of large centers and economic hubs with an international role, the promotion of economic diplomacy (with priority to neighbors and Islamic countries), activation The role of transit (with emphasis on the North-South corridor) is to pay attention to the government's protectionist attitude towards the regional development of Makran, give priority to knowledge-based industries and businesses, build a national brand, strengthen tourism and export handicrafts.

Equality of development opportunities is one of the socio-economic goals and a basic prerequisite for achieving economic stability and integrated progress in a country. In the present research, 69 development indicators related to cultural-social, educational, infrastructure, health-treatment, environmental and economic sectors were analyzed to identify and compare the development opportunities of 30 provinces of Iran. Shannon's entropy method was used to determine the weights of the indicators and the TOPSIS method was used to rank the provinces in terms of access to the opportunities of each sector. Finally, by using the taxonomy technique, the degree of enjoyment of the provinces from a total of six opportunities was evaluated. The results show that there is a deep gap in the distribution and allocation of facilities and opportunities among the provinces of the country. Tehran province was the most privileged and Kurdistan, South Khorasan, Lorestan, West Azerbaijan and North Khorasan provinces were determined as the most deprived provinces. Based on significant difference among provinces, it is recommended that the priorities of the budget allocation be determined according to the degrees of benefits for the provinces.

Improving regional development policy is one of the most important challenges of countries. In recent decades, regional development policy theories with the approach of delegating authority to regions in order to improve the efficiency of the public sector and promote the balance between regions have expanded greatly in economic literature. In the third development plan, a new form of administrative and financial decentralization has been formed in Iran in line with the regional development policy by creating the provincial income-expenditure system. The purpose of this article is to examine the issues and problems of regional development policy and ways to improve it. Using the Delphi method, the most important challenges of regional policy are identified and then to reduce the issues and problems of regional development in Iran, the main and secondary solutions are determined and to determine they were ranked using the method (hierarchical analysis and TOPSIS). According to the hierarchical analysis method, among the main indicators, the best mechanism for promoting regional development policy in Iran is "designing a comprehensive monitoring system in the budget planning system of the entire government in order to monitor regional development and balance and monitor the way credits are spent in the provinces". According to experts, according to the TOPSIS method, the best indicator for promoting regional development policy is "redesigning the provincial revenue-expenditure system (transparency in the amount of distribution of financial and budgetary resources between regions of the country) and also "designing a comprehensive monitoring system in the planning and budget system of the whole government in order to monitor development and regional balance and monitor the way credits are used in the provinces" is the best solution; therefore, policy makers and planners should pay attention to these solutions to promote regional policy Have.

Regional development is a concept that focuses on motivating and diversifying various economic activities and investing in various sectors in order to reduce differences and economic and social differences between different regions. It also supports the improvement of living standards, the intensification of economic activities, the increase of investment in different sectors, and finally the promotion of dynamic and attractive economy. The economic development of different regions is based on the capabilities of each. Despite the fact that Iran's oceanic coasts have numerous capabilities for regional development (the possibility of benefiting from sea transportation, transit, marine industries, tourism, etc.), there has not been much achieved in that regards. Thus, this research aims to analyze the situation of Iran's oceanic coasts, as to formulate and present suggested strategies for the regional development of these coasts. To this end, based on SWOT framework, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of Iran's ocean coasts were discussed and after the evaluation process, some strategies or competitive-aggressive strategies were introduced. Consequently, the system should take steps towards the implementation and application of the mentioned strategies, and by making use of the internal strengths, it should benefit the most from the external opportunities. Correspondingly, adaptive strategies were identified as second priority strategies. According to these guidelines, efforts should be made to eliminate, or at least reduce, the internal weaknesses, so that it would be conceivable to take advantage of special and appropriate opportunities in this region.

Providing employment and eliminating inequality between regions in order to create regional balance is one of the concerns of policy makers and regional development planners and in rural communities that play a key role in providing raw materials and food security, its importance is twofold. The aim of this quantitative and applied research is spatial analysis of employment indicators in rural areas of 31 provinces of Iran. The findings of the research showed that in terms of employment indicators, the three provinces of Zanjan, Ardabil and Qazvin, with final scores of 0.3337, 0.2373, and 0.232, ranked first to third, and three provinces of Sistan and Baluchistan, Kohgiluyeh & BoyerAhmad and Kerman, respectively, occupied the lowest ranks with final scores of -0.3788, -0.318, and -0.218. The results of spatial analysis showed that if we divide the entire country into two parts, northern and southern, the northern half of the country is in a better situation than the southern half in terms of having employment indicators. The results of Pearson's correlation coefficient showed that there is a statistically significant and negative relationship between provinces' employment indicators and the distance from the center variable at the 99% confidence level.

One of the basic needs of human society, which is related to the issue of development in all its aspects and is now considered as one of the signs of civilization, is the issue of economic infrastructure. In addition to affecting development, this infrastructure is also changing. Therefore, in the present study, the rate of economic infrastructure development in Mazandaran province has been measured using the model of Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP),  FUZZY Logic and Geographic Information System (GIS). The research method is descriptive-analytical and it can be used in the regional planning system. Accordingly, spatial layers of transportation, energy and information and communication technology (ICT) were obtained through the statistical yearbook Mazandaran province in 1398. In the following, three economic infrastructure development evaluation indicators along with related sub-criteria were rated by the participants through a questionnaire and they were integrated in the Geographic Information System (GIS). Finally, the research maps show that 49.01% of the cities in the province are in a very high category of economic infrastructure. 27% of cities are in the middle and upper middle level and 23% suffer from low and very low in economic infrastructure facilities. On the other hand, 39% of Mazandaran villages are situated in the best zone of infrastructure.

Unbalanced growth models emphasize the selection of a key sector and investment in it as a leading sector in order to achieve economic growth and development. Given the limited resources in developing countries, identifying and determining key activities from a policy perspective and adopting a strategy for economic development is important. It has a special feature. Meanwhile, the regions (provinces) in Iran as a vast country have different economic, social and geographical characteristics, and therefore it can be said that planning in each province should be done according to the specific conditions of that province and from this perspective the choice Key sectors in each province are of particular importance. For this purpose, in the present study, the sectoral links in the economy of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province have been investigated; In which the national output data table of 1390 of the Statistics Center of Iran and regional accounts have been used. The results show that based on the new approach, the agricultural, hunting and forestry sectors and the industrial sector have been obtained as drivers; Attention to the development policies of agricultural-related industries is essential for the growth of the province's economy

Fiscal policies can be used as an appropriate tool to achieve regional balanced development goals and programs. In this regard, the government can contribute to the development goals of balanced development of regions through effective and efficient tax exemptions by increasing investment, transfer of knowledge and technology. In this regard, the purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of tax exemptions (Article 132 of the Law on Direct Taxes) on the number and value added of industrial units established in deprived and less developed areas in Iranian provinces using method of panel data during 2006-2016. The results indicate that the volume of physical capital, the number of employees, government capital expenditures and bank payment facilities to industrial sector have positive effects on the number and value added of industrial units. Also, the tax exemptions subject to Article 132 have not effect on the number and value added of industrial units in deprived and less developed areas.

Establishing industrial free trade zones is one of the strategies of developing countries to take advantage of global trade, without the disadvantages of free trade expanding to the country. To take advantage of the free trade zones, Iran has so far established seven zones in different regions. But one of the important questions after the establishment of free trade zones is whether the established free industrial trade zones are able to improve economic growth and development.  In this study, using the Synthetic Control Approach, the answer to the mentioned question is given for the Anzali Free Zone. In other words, the effect of establishing the Anzali free zone on the growth and development of Guilan province is estimated. The results of the study show that the Anzali Free Zone has not been able to have a positive and significant effect on the growth and development of Guilan province. Of the four variables under study, the establishment of the Anzali Free Zone has negative effect on the per capita industrial value-added in Guilan province compared to the control group. Also, it has not have significant effect on the amount of agricultural value-added, services value-added, the real GDP per capita in Guilan province compared to the control group.
Therefore, it can be concluded that the establishment of the Anzali Free Zone has not been able to achieve one of its main goals, which is the development and growth of the Guilan.

Industrial clusters are representing a new way of thinking about place creating a business that improves industrial competitiveness through product specialization and increases overall returns through value chains of business and reduces transaction costs. In this study, formation of talented clusters in Bushehr province were identified by the Marshallian cluster model and by three quantitative approaches of cluster index, input-output table analysis and Getis-Ord’s Gi statistics. Thus, first, determine the concentration activities and calculated the cluster index. Then, by input-output table analysis and calculating the index of technical coefficients, strong links between activities were identified. In the following, Getis-Ord’s Gi statistics was calculated in ArcGIS10.2 software to determine the cities talented to formation of industrial cluster. Hence, the possibility of forming a cluster among the services and commerce activities of the hotel and restaurant category had the highest centralization of employment in Bushehr city. Then, the results of input-output table analysis showed that this category provides intermediate inputs for categorys of agricultural, electricity, water and gas and financial services, and in turn, these categorys provides intermediate inputs in the category of hotel and restaurants. As the categorys of food and beverage prouducts, wholesale and retail and building business activities plays a role in providing intermediate inputs in the hotel and restaurant category. In the end, the results of Getis-Ord’s Gi statistics showed that Bushehr city has the possibility of forming clusters with Genaveh and Deylam cities in the category of hotel and restaurant.

Regarding the bilateral relationship between financial decentralization and regional development at the national level, this study examines the relationship between regional inequality and vertical balance financial decentralization across the provinces of Iran. For this purpose, the calculations are carried out in two stages: in the first stage, the Composite Index of Regional Development (CIRD) is calculated in five dimensions (macroeconomics, science and innovation, environmental sustainability, human capital and public services) by using the two-stage principal components analysis (PCA) during 2006-2016. In the second stage, the interactions between vertical balance financial decentralization and regional development are estimated using the simultaneous equations and error component two-stage least squares (EC2SLS). The results of the first stage analysis show that Tehran province is at the highest level of development, and Sistan and Baluchestan province is at the lowest level of development, and these two provinces practically reflect the wide inequality in the provinces of Iran. In addition, the highest regional inequality is related to the dimensions of science, innovation and human capital. The results of the second stage indicate that the effect of vertical balance financial decentralization on negative regional development is significant and negative, meaning that if provinces spend based on their income, a slight decrease in provincial development has it Because provinces play lesser role in determining tax rates and bases, less developed provinces are not able to generate sufficient revenue to cover their provincial expenditures. Financial decentralization also increases with an increase in regional development, meaning that provinces with different levels of development are likely to have different tendencies toward the quality and quantity of public goods.

Today, communications and information play a fundamental and undeniable role in human progress and the development of societies. In this research, using the indicators of communication and information, we have focused on the level of information society society in the city of Golestan province. The research methodology is descriptive-analytic in nature and has a practical-developmental purpose. The required data are collected by library and documentation method. The techniques used in this paper are the feature coefficient, class difference difference, coefficient of variation, and the model of the wikker, and the Shannon Entropy method was used for scoring. Also, for analyzing the data, Excel software Has been used to display it as a spatial distribution of ARC GIS 9.3 software. The findings show that there is a significant difference between the city of Gorgan and the other provinces of the province in terms of having indicators of the information-communication society. Based on the results of the technique, the coefficient of feature of Gorgan city with a high attribute of 3355792 has a significant difference with other cities of the province and is tangible with the second city of the province in terms of having the indicators of the information and communication society - Gonbad Kavoos city with a coefficient of 623117 Should be. The combination of the results of the feature coefficient technique for classifying the province's cities in the class dispute resolution model is only in the Gorgan region in the first floor of the development and 13 other provinces in the province are placed in the deprived floor, namely, the fifth floor. The calculation of the coefficient of variation for analyzing the distribution of indicators also shows that the index of the number of printers with a rate of 3.24 is the distribution of inequality between the provinces of the province. The results of the viik technique show that the city of Gorgan focused on the indicators of the information-communication society and is the most deprived city in Gomishan.regional expansion, multi-criteria decision, Entropy, VIKOR, Golestan province.

That inequality in the allocation of material resources by governments across regions, other than marginalizing distributive justice, causes many social and economic problems that create other abnormalities in society. Among the abnormalities that could be due to the lack of balanced development are the emergence and increase of poverty, unemployment, infrastructure and service failures, environmental threats, and demographic misconceptions (Rafeeian, 2012:2). The main goals and objectives of the present paper are to rank the provinces based on development and allocation of funds aspects in the third to eleventh governments, measurement and separation of three budgets; total, developmental, current (volume of government) in the development of regions. Therefore, to policymaking in the direction of regional equilibrium, the effects of each will be obtained in the form of regression models and also, it will be determined which provinces have been able to develop further due to the relative share of the budget (budget efficiency in development). It is possible to achieve this by adjusting the allocation budgets of the provinces in order to regulate balanced development in the regions. Among the other factors studied in the current paper are the application of regional planning model and effective management approach in regional development. For developed and undeveloped provinces, efficient management is more important for allocating budgets.

The present paper was conducted in two stages. In the first stage, the available data for the variables studied were collected in the statistical journal. After sorting and categorizing data for regional equilibrium, 21 indicators and 151 sub-indicators were formed. A matrix of 31 * 21 was obtained after forming the provinces and then the whole country matrices. Later, by weighing each of the indicators according to the Delphi method, the ranking was obtained from the level of development of the provinces of the country in the TOPSIS software environment. To complete this section, using the cluster model, and according to the degree of enjoyment and deprivation of provinces, they were classified into 6 different groups. Also, at this stage, the ranking of budget allocations in the period considered for the provinces was also obtained and efficient provinces were also identified according to the development and budget of the provinces and the budget efficiency indicator in development. In addition, according to the "Regional Development Planning" model, the provinces were divided into two levels of developed and deprived provinces in terms of thirst in budget and effective management or mismanagement, and budget saturation.In the second stage, based on the existence of three variables, namely total budget, development budget, current budget (government volume), whose annual data were extracted from the Statistical Centre for each provinces, three simple regression models were formed. With the help of Eviews software, in the form of a data panel model, for each of the variables mentioned above, a coefficient of development was obtained and the effect of each variable was measured on the basis of its development.

The software output from the TOPSIS model indicated that Tehran and Ilam provinces were the most developed and least-favored provinces in the country, respectively. Also, in this section, an estimate of the average provincial budget allocation was made. In this regard, the provinces of Tehran and Semnan were placed at the top and at the end of the table, respectively. Also, in the case of regional development, by forming a cluster model, the provinces were classified in six clusters: the most developed cluster with only Tehran province; the developed cluster,, the relatively developed cluster, the relatively deprived cluster, the deprived cluster, with 3, 4, 5, and 17 provinces respectively while the very deprived cluster  had only Ilam province. Therefore, it can be said that approximately 74% of the provinces in the second half of the clusters were among the deprived provinces and 26% of the provinces were among the developed provinces.In the second part of the research, according to the development index extracted for the provinces, the other 3 variables: "total budget", "development budget" and "government volume (current budget)" were introduced and then their effects on development were measured by three independent regression models.The development budget had a higher positive effect on development than the overall budget, while the volume of government had a negative and reverse effect on development. In other words, with rising costs, development continued to decline. Therefore, it can be stated that in Iran, the lower the current costs and government volume, the higher the indicators of development. Another significant point in this research is the 10-fold and positive effect of developmental budget to the total budget and the 12-fold negative and reverse effects of increasing the volume of government volume to the total budget on development.
 

The present study shows that development in Iran has been distributed in an unbalanced way. The effect of various factors on the development of provinces has also been different. Some provinces have been more affected by the developmental budget and macro-provincial efficient management. Moreover, by increasing the volume of government, the development has slowed down.

Even though the development planning in Iran has been applied since the 1940s, it has not still made much progress in terms of balanced development as well as the regional justice in development and a huge amount of human capital, financial and natural resources which are consumed, have obtained few achievements. Therefore, it seems necessary to examine and analyze critically the dominant approach in the country’s planning regime, focusing on the issue of balanced development, and identify the strengths, weaknesses and challenges of development plans. Although many studies have been done to undertake this issue, it is necessary to study a comprehensive pathology of challenges and weaknesses of development planning in terms of balanced and regional development. As the studies have been done so far, often have covered limited scope with little attention to all aspects of development planning, it is necessary to put them in an order. Therefore, in this paper, at first Iran development plans with respect to regional balanced development are reviewed for almost seven decades and after that, the strengths and weaknesses of development plans after the Islamic Revolution have been analyzed in terms of regional balanced development. This article then provides a comprehensive pathology for the challenges of regional balanced development based on its significance and impacts. As a result, this paper tries to explain the related challenges and help to resolve them through categorizing previous studies and organizing different aspects of the challenges and weaknesses at three levels of pre-planning, planning and post-planning. The categorization of challenges shows the most important weaknesses in the process of balanced development in Iran which included a conceptual challenge toward balanced development, the problem of defining the region, allocating the financial resources and centralised planning system.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate social welfare and the convergence of social welfare of Iran,s provinces. For the purpose we use Nahar and Inder convergence during 2000-2013. The results indicate that Kermanshah, Kohkiloyeh and Boyerahmad and Mazandaran areconvergence towards the average of welfare of the provinces and Also, West Azarbaijan, East Azarbaijan, Ardabil, Bushehr, Razavi Khorasan, North Khorasan, Semnan, Sistan and Baluchestan, Qom, Golestan, Lorestan and Hormozgan diverge from the average of welfare. Also, most of the Iran,s provinces have a lower welfare than the community average. Therefore, policymakers performance in this field are not suitable for balanced development of regions welfare.

Alignment of industrial development and differences in the regional development has increased the importance of investigation of spatial aspects and of the main drivers in regional development that it is a factor in the spread of inequalities in the regions of each country. This study aimed to assess factors affecting regional development using spatial econometric model and it analyze the regional development problem in the provinces of Iran. For this purpose, the two-sided neighborhood matrix and spatial error model are used for 30 provinces during 1392. The results indicated a significant influence of political factors on increase or decrease the level of regional development disparities between provinces, particularly fiscal policy. Industrial investment as one of the important variables in the development and structural transition has a significant positive influence on regional development and because of the impact that rising income levels, backward and forward linkages and value chain can be a factor convergence is affecting regional development.

Investment spillover effects include regional growth factors around the developed centers, which this study aimed investigate effects of industrial investment spillover in provinces of Iran and the quantifying of these effects. Accordingly, it uses the spatial econometrics to explore the indirect effects or industrial investment spillover. The results indicate that provinces with a higher gravity index, which are respectively Tehran, Isfahan, Khorasan Razavi, Khuzestan and Fars with a coefficient of 0.152, 0.090, 0.085, 0.083 and 0.077 respectively, have more industrial investment spillover than other provinces. In contrast, provinces with more great geographical distance from developed provinces such as Ardabil, Sistan and Baluchestan, northern Khorasan and Ilam, respectively with coefficients of 0.029, 0.031, 0.037 and 0.038, have less benefit of industrial investment spillover Compared to other regions. Also, industrial investment spillover effects for different regions, very different from each other. As for some provinces, the indirect effects are much less than direct effects and for some provinces, the indirect effects are close to direct effects. This can be due to geographical location, politics, government regulation and exposure to developed provinces.

The convergence of social welfare is one of the criteria for evaluating regional development policies. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the convergence of social welfare for evaluating regional development from 2000 to 2013. To this end, a nonlinear spatial error star econometrics technique is used to separate linear and nonlinear regimes.
According to the results, the provinces can be divided into two groups: in the first group of provinces, the social welfare growth is affected by the welfare of the regions themselves and spatial effects are not observed among them. In the second one, however, spatial effects are observed among the provinces, which include Qom, Isfahan, Khuzestan, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, Fars and Bushehr. Other provinces are in the first group. Moreover, the results show a convergence among the regions of the first group while there is no convergence among the second group. Therefore, Policies have failed to eliminate the regional inequalities and imbalances.
JEL Classifications: I31, C20, R12