نشریه اقتصاد و تجارت نوین
سال هفدهم شماره 4 (پیاپی 57، زمستان 1401)

This paper investigates the effect of the banking structure on income inequality in Iran. For the banking structure, three indicators of assets, credits, and foreign sector have been calculated and a regression model has been estimated with the Auto-Regressive Distributed Lags approach for the period of 1979-2016. The findings reveal that Iran's undeveloped financial system, which is relationship-oriented like other bank-based financial systems, has often had a counter-development function. So that among the three investigated indicators, the effect of two indicators of the structure of assets and credits of the banking system on income inequality is significantly positive and has caused an increase in income inequality. In contrast, the effect of the structure of the international transactions index of the banking system is significantly negative, which supports the positive effects of the international integration of Iran's financial system. In this way, the increase in international banking transactions can strengthen the development function of “relationship orientation” in the banking system and subsequently reduce income inequality. In contrast, the effect of the structure of the international transactions index of the banking system is significantly negative, which supports the positive effects of the international integration of Iran's financial system. In this way, the increase in international banking transactions can strengthen the development function of “relationship orientation” in the banking system and subsequently reduce income inequality.

Today, one of the most important platforms for increasing economic interactions in the international arena, transferring new technologies and continuing economic growth, is foreign direct investment; Because achieving economic growth and development in any country requires the formation of capital to provide the required financial resources. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to search for specific variables in order to facilitate the attraction of foreign direct investment, among these variables is life expectancy at birth as a special form of human capital. Considering this necessity, the purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of life expectancy at birth on the flow of foreign direct investment in the top 47 science producing countries for the period from 2011 to 2020. For this purpose, the model of the current research was estimated based on the dynamic panel data approach and the results showed that all the studied variables including life expectancy at the beginning of production as an indicator of population health with different estimated coefficients have a positive and significant effect on foreign direct investment; Therefore, it is suggested to the policy makers in order to attract foreign direct investment, in addition to other attraction policies, to implement the human resource development policy such as the policy of promoting health and population health through increasing the budget of the health sector and achieving health infrastructure facilities, so that the health and Improve people's life expectancy and in this way facilitate the attraction of foreign direct investment to the country.

The development of technology, information, and communication can boost the tourism industry by further identifying and facilitating access to the attractions and facilities of tourist destinations, and since the recognition of tourist destinations is usually accompanied by the identification of adjacent regions and the tourists tend to travel visit adjacent regions. Therefore, the development of information and communication technology can also have the effects of spatial overflow and increase the number of tourists in adjacent regions. Thus, in This study, the impact of information and communication technology on tourist attraction among the provinces was investigated with a spatial econometric approach during the period 2011-2019. The results show that ICT development, the number of specialist physicians, the number of cultural centers, length of roads (freeways and highways), have positive and significant effects on destinations and neighboring provinces' tourist attraction also the results indicated that direct and spatial elasticity of information and communication technology of tourists for the target provinces and neighboring provinces is more than the elasticity of other factors affecting tourism, Which shows that neighboring and nearby provinces has significant contribution on each other's tourism industry growth and development of by developing mutual relations and specific regional planning.Key words: tourism, Information and Communications Technology, spillover effects.

Tax is one of the determining variables of financial and distribution policies in the economy, Therefore, knowing and understanding the sensitivity of different sources of tax income to changes in economic growth plays an important role in determining the optimal rate of various types of tax bases. Taxes can make a significant contribution to improving the stability of government revenues and implementing policies to improve income distribution, Therefore, recognizing the effect of economic growth as one of the economic capacities has an important role in determining taxes. In this regard, this paper is done using the statistical evidence of Iran over 1981-2019 and using the quantile regression approach to estimate the asymmetric elasticity of tax to economic growth. The results show that there is a kind of asymmetry in tax elasticities and in high tax quantiles, the elasticity value is greater than one and this indicates the financial stability of government revenues in high quantiles. In addition, the low tax elasticity in the tax on goods and services, companies and imports indicates the low financial stability of the government in this type of taxes. Therefore, focusing on increasing the share of taxes with higher elasticity is the most important proposed policy for the government in order to increase revenues.

Based on theoretical foundations, the effect of arms trade on defense spending is ambiguous and influenced by various strategic, security and political factors. One of these factors is democracy. In this regard, this paper investigates the threshold effects of arms trade on defense spending in 30 selected countries for the period of 1995 to 2018, using the Panel Smooth Transition Regression (PSTR) model as one of the most prominent regime-switching models. For this purpose, democracy net is used as a transition variable. The linearity test results indicate strongly nonlinear relationship among variables under consideration. Moreover, considering one transition function and one threshold parameter, as a two-regime model, is sufficient to specification of nonlinear relationship among variables. The results indicate that threshold value is 4.75 percent and the estimated slope parameter is 0.61. In the first regime, the arms import has a positive and small effect on defense spending; that after crossing the threshold level and entering the second regime, this positive effect has decreased. Also, arms export has a positive effect on defense spending in the first regime; But after crossing the threshold level, in the second regime, this positive influence changes its sign and becomes negative. Based on other results, after crossing the threshold level of democracy and being in the second regime, the positive effect of the variables of GDP, population, income from natural resources and the conflict index, decrease (while maintaining the sign) and the negative effect of the health spending variable increases. These results show that the level of democracy plays an important role in the effect of the arms trade on defense spending and in general the effect of the variables included in the defense spending function.

According to relevant international economics theories, imports either substitute for or complement FDI. The present study aims to examine this issue in 27 selected developing countries that joined the WTO during 1990-2019. At the first step, Granger and Dumitrescu-Hurlin tests were used to determine the direction of causality between two variables. The results demonstrated a strong one-way causal relationship from imports to FDI. Then, the effect of imports on FDI was estimated by FGLS method. The results showed a significant positive effect of imports on FDI. Hence, in the selected countries, imports complemented FDI rather than replacing it. This finding confirms that a competitive economy in which low barriers are imposed on imports is more attractive for foreign investors than a protected economy. The results also confirmed the hypothesis of the positive effect of accession to the WTO on FDI absorption. The obligation of the member states of the WTO to observe the principle rules of non-discrimination and transparency (through binding their tariffs and trade regulations), as well as to respect all aspects of intellectual property rights and above all the efficiency and effectiveness of the Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) of the WTO are among the main reasons behind this fact. Therefore, Iran by lowering its tariffs through joining the WTO, not only does not cause destruction of its industries in long run but it is expected to accelerate the economic growth based on its comparative advantages.