فصلنامه پژوهش های اقتصادی ایران
پیاپی 84 (پاییز 1399)

European countries need to diversify their natural gas imports to reduce their dependency on Russia. One of the best options for exporting natural gas to European countries is to export gas through the Southern Corridor, in which Iran, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Iraq could potentially be major participants. All four countries need Turkey to export natural gas; there is no alternative way in this regard. In the present paper, the bargaining power of different countries and possible alliances for natural gas exports to Europe are studied, based on the cooperative game theory approach, especifically Shapley Value solution. Accordingly, we identify various possible scenarios as possible options. Our approach helps us know different countries' bargaining power for exporting natural gas to Europe, which is a useful approach in this field.

In recent years, the desire to create a monetary union at the international level has increased. According to economic theory, the formation of monetary unions and the adoption of a common currency encourages economic integration, controls monetary policy instability, reduces transaction costs in trade and can lead to an increase in real income through boosting trade. The proximity and neighborhoods of the countries have been introduced as one of the factors affecting trade and the formation of monetary unions. In this study, given the importance of this issue, the effect of the monetary union on bilateral trade has been investigated using the spatial econometric approach during the period of 2000-2015 for a selected countries of the world. The results of the research show that the effect of common currency on bilateral trade is positive, whose trade will lead to economic growth in the countries. Also, the spatial effects of the shared money and geographical distance have been confirmed. Hence, it can be concluded that countries that are adjacent to each other or have common currency would strengthen the trade between themselves, by creating monetary unions. Also, the results of the spatial econometric approach show that GDP and Trade openness index (in three spatial matrices) and real exchange rate (in the common currency matrix and the modified currency matrix) had a positive and significant effect on bilateral trade between the studied countries.

The critical situation of water and its demand growth in Iran as well as the destruction and improper exploitation of groundwater resources with drought continuity have caused the management of water demand to become an important concern in the country's policies in all sectors, including the household sector. Without identifying the influential factors and their importance in the pattern of household water consumption, planning and implementation of effective policies are impossible. This study identifies socio-economic factors affecting water demand and determine their degree of importance in the pattern of household water consumption. Due to the impossibility of specifying the accurate mathematical relationships between these factors and water consumption, this study used the random forest algorithm to determine the most important factors. Also, because of the differences in the lifestyle and cultures of rural and urban households, these two groups have been studied separately. Finally, according to the obtained results, 17 important factors were determined in three different levels of influence. The variables of household income, house size, and age of the household’s head were identified as the three most important quantitative variables affecting both urban and rural household consumption, respectively. Among the qualitative variables, the use of evaporative cooler was recognized as the most important effective variable. Other factors were ranked in order of effectiveness.

The impact of world economic competitiveness on the welfare of people and on economic development is undeniable. The present study examines the effect of good governance indicators on the global competitiveness index of the economy in selected countries of the MENA region. In order to achieve the research objectives, the statistical information related to the research variables during the period 2010-2017 was collected from the reports and database of the World Economic Forum and the World Bank. Then, the research model was estimated using the panel data econometric method and the fixed effects model. Research findings show that the impact of corruption control, rule of law, regulatory quality, and the government effectiveness indicators on the global competitiveness index is statistically significant at 5% level and have positive effect. The impact of protest and accountability and political stability indicators on the global economic competitiveness index is statistically significant at 10% level; these indicators have positive impact on the global competitiveness index of the economy. In addition, the impact of control variables such as innovation factors, efficiency factors, and essential requirements on the global competitiveness index of the economy is positive and statistically significant. Thus, in order to strengthen the global economic competitiveness of countries, the paper suggests following up and practicing the good governance indicators provided by the World Economic Forum, besides as well as other influential factors.

The purpose of this research is to measure the efficiency of selected Iranian banks from 2010 to 2016. We estimate efficiency, productivity and efficiency changes under the Bayesian setting. In this research, we consider the Non-Performing Loans (NPLs) of banks as bad outputs, while good outputs are loans, off balance sheet assets and securities. Also, variables such as number of employees, bank capital, fixed assets and deposits play inputs role. Results show that the productivity changes of selected Iranian banks are positive over the period of the study, which is mainly due to the improvement in technology like e-banking services, while efficiency changes continued to be negative over the same period. It is observed that the average efficiency for banks is 85 percent. The Karafarin bank has the largest efficiency among selected banks while Refah Kargaran bank efficiency has the smallest one. Results also show that, during the specified period, private banks have a few better efficiency estimate in comparison with the efficiency of state owned banks.

One of the most efficient and effective solutions available for water demand management is using economic tools (such as water markets). Different aspects of water management including technical, economical, social and legal structure are important and essential in water market creation and development. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the factors affecting the creation and development of the water market in the Hamedan-Bahar plain. This research is based on a quantitative and descriptive-analytical   method. The population of the study includes water-bearing farmers in Hamedan-Bahar plain (N = 3048). Data, were gathered by surveying method through researcher-made questionnaire to evaluate farmers' opinions in order to investigate the factors affecting the creation and development of the water market in the Hamedan-Bahar plain in 2018-2019. The sample size is 240 determined based on the Cochran formula. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was used to examine the reliability of the research tool, which was 0.91. Results showed, the elimination of legal conflicts, recognition of the water market, definition of water exchange rights, the installation of smart meters and the mechanism for delivering water volumes as technical agricultural factors are the most effective factors in water market creation and development.

The importance of the technology gap ratio among the countries of the region can be examined not only from the perspective of the role of technology, but also from economic competitiveness point of view. This study examines the role of knowledge-based economy in the technology gap ratio using frontier and meta frontier production functions during 1995–2015 in 24 countries of Iran's vision plan. In this regard, the countries of the region were classified into three groups based on the components of knowledge economy and cluster analysis. The results showed that countries in the first group with an average gap of 95 percent are closer to meta frontier technology (1), and also the average technology gap ratio in the other groups  is 94% and 67%. Investigating the role of components of knowledge based economy in the technology gap ratio between countries, indicated the very important role of the institutional regime and economic incentives component in decreasing the technology gap ratio based on the computational elasticity of each component between these countries. Thus to decrease the technology gap ratio, there is an emphasis on upgrading such component indicators, which include removing tariff and non-tariff barriers, the rule of law, and the quality of laws and regulations.