نشریه اقتصاد مالی
پیاپی 4 (پاییز 1387)

In the light of gasoline shortage in the county, resorting to import or erection of new refinery are the possible options available. This paper aims to investigate how to meet the gasoline needs of the country by domestically refining the heavy crude oil, extracted from newly developed oil fields such as Soroush and Norouz. Refiningcapacity of these new proposed installations is expected to be around 055thousand barrels per day and heavy crude oil intake of these refineries is assumed to come from Norouz oil fields. It is worth mentioning that this study has taken care of environmental considerations while deciding on the appropriate location for the erection of these refineries as well as how to meet the crude oil intake and water required by these new refineries. The model used in this study is simply a new model experimentally applied in this case study. So far, this model has not been used in the feasibility study of oil refining activities in Iran. In regard to feasibility study of oil refineries, various approaches are reviewed in this paper and the result are drawn out.The findings of this paper indicate that erection of heavy crude oil refinery, based on crude oil priced below 05dollars per barrel, is economically feasible. Besides, with lowering oil prices, its feasibility is further validated.

n this paper attempts are made to evaluate the technical efficiency of selected 46branches of bank Tejarat, in a specific bank operating region called region four. Toward this ends, a nonparametric technique known as Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) has been use with a view to providing practical guidelines for efficiency improvement in the banking operation.Based on task assigned to bank managers, the assumption of output oriented Variable Return to Scale (VRS) has been utilized in this study to measure the technical efficiency achieved at. To do so, the month of May in 2225, 2228, and 2221was selected as check points for efficiency measurement.The findings of this study indicate that average efficiency attributed to regional bank operation has declined in 2225and this trend has lasted until 2221. The banks that have contributed to decline in lower efficiency record of region four, has been identified. The bank with more sub branches has been contributing to efficiency gain but those banks maintaining low current deposit while keeping its claims at higher level have suffered efficiency loss.

The development dynamics between various sectors of an economy exerts an effective force towards sustainable development. The potential role of service sector in this regard is outstanding since it constitutes a larger share in GNP. In this context, insurance industry, a key segment of service sector, play a cushioning role for other sectors as it provides financial and psychological support to the entire economy. Insurance activities in Iran, despite its century long existence and experience, have not exploited its potential role in business environment and have not fulfilled its expected role in the economy of Iran. This paper has aimed to estimate the demand function for commercial insurance across the country (province-wise demand function). Attempts have been made to measure statistically the effect of variable such as Income Per capita, premium, inflation, literacy rate and compensation paid, on the demand for commercial insurance in Iran. The author has applied Eviews software and Panel Data techniques to estimate the parameters. The time span covered it this study starts from March 20, 2110to March 21, 2113. The findings of this research indicate that there is a positive and significant relationship between Income Per capita and the demand for commercial insurance in Iranian provinces. An increase of 01in Income Per capita brings about 11031increase in demand for insurance. Moreover, there is a positive and significant relationship between compensation paid and demand for commercial insurances in the provinces. The demand for insurance services would increase by 1171in response to 01increasein compensation paid. The relationship between premium paid and the demand for commercial insurances in the provinces, is found to be negative and statistically meaningful. In other words, one per cent increase in premium per insurance issued would contract demand for insurance by 11..per cent.

This paper aims to study the impact of ICT on labor productivity in banking industry over the period of 2002-2007. Technique used in this paper is a combination of Cobb–Douglas production function, panel data and e-views software (version 6).The result of estimation indicates that ICT has a positive effect on labor productivity in banking industry. Besides, both human and physical capital has shown to have a positive effect on labor productivity. In the light of our findings it is thus suggested that developing countries such as Iran should provide the enabling environment and facilitate investment in ICT, so that domestic and foreign investors are further encouraged investing in this new area.

The expansion of regional trade arrangements has been coincided with the growing trend in globalization. The importance of these regional trade arrangements have grown to that extent that now many countries in developing region have considered it as an alternative option to integrating into world economy and thus boosting their foreign trade and ensuring the mutual gain for the member countries. The very objectives of these regional trade arrangements are to reduce tariff barriers and to be the cause of increase in social welfare. But looking at the negotiations that are underway, a question that arise is that whether the formation of such trade unions, in particular in developing regions has been in line with the objective of boosting trade within member countries ?and also whether growth of intra trade has brought about growth in trade with non member countries or not? If regional trade agreements bring about increase in intra trade it is the case for trade creation but if it comes at the cost of reducing trade with non-member countries it is the case for trade diversion. Trade creation works towards the welfare improvement but trade diversion causes the loss of welfare .This paper has attempted to measure the trade creation and trade diversion in regional grouping of countries in Asia. To do so, three known Asian regionalorganizations namely, the EconomicCooperation Organization (ECO), Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and association of south East Asian nations (ASEAN) have been selected for this purpose. Towards this ends the paper has utilized an extended version of a relatively well known gravity model to measure trade creation and trade diversion in these country groupings. Data used in this study covers the period of 2002-2006. The findings of this study indicate that over the period under investigation all the three regions have revealed trade diversion.

The purpose of this study is to find optimal cropping pattern in Iran, which maximizes the net income return per cubic meter of water consumed. Our aim is to achieve the efficient utilization of the scarce water resources. For attaining this goal, the method offractional programming was applied to data collected from the site of Ministry of Jihad-E-keshavarzi, statistical center of Iran and yearbook of agriculture. This study was performed in two scenarios one under internal prices scenarios and the other underinternational prices scenario. The ratio of income to water consumed is taking as measure to gauge consistency rate. The findings show that the ratio of income to water consumed in fractional programming is higher than that of in linear programming. In other words, in optimum pattern of cropping the amount of water consumed is reduced considerably .Based on the findings, it can thus be concluded that we can enhance the performance of agricultural sector by adopting the appropriate pricing policies.

Forecasting employment and unemployment figures for Iran can help depict labor market condition on horizon of vision plan. Using ARIMAmodel, the author has aimed to forecast the share of economic sectors, namely agriculture, industry and mines and service sector, in Iran’s employment over the period of 6009-6062. The findings of this paper indicate that over the past 20years (6723-6003) employment trends have not been uniform for these sectors, i.e., it has been decreasing for agriculture and increasing at a slow rate for industry and mines. For service sectors it has been constantly increasing.The findings further provide the ground to argue that this pattern of developments in employment would be maintained on the horizon of vision plan in 6101(6062).

This study aims to compare the efficiency of public and private investment in terms of effect on growth performance of sectors viz. agriculture, mine and industry and service sector using neoclassical growth model and pooled data technique. The applied index representing efficiency in public and private sectors is the marginal productivity of capital investment. The findings of this study indicate that public investment has had a positive effect on the growth of service sector while private investment has had positive impact on growth of both industry and service sectors. At the same time marginal productivity of investment in private sector tends to be higher than that of public sector. On this ground, one could justify the undergoing program of privatization of state owned enterprises.