مجله اقتصاد و توسعه منطقه ای
پیاپی 23 (بهار و تابستان 1401)

Oil and natural energies are important tools in global economic financial policies and the process based on income generation and progress based on it. In this context, oil and oil derivatives play a fundamental role in the economic infrastructure of countries that produce this precious substance. Iran's economy has been mainly based on oil since many years ago, especially from the 1350s onwards. In Iran, first of all, as an energy source, oil has evolved the life and economy of the country's people and caused economic growth and development, secondly, the income from oil has led to advancement and progress in all economic and social pillars. In other words, oil has been the factor of national prestige and the driving engine of economic, social and cultural growth and development of the country. 

The issue of changes in the business model and adaptation to the current market conditions is a fundamental and vital issue, and blockchain is an up-to-date structure in various businesses; It is in different sizes and in different patterns. Blockchain is a data distribution of database based on the community of millions of sharing points, in which data is recorded and modified simultaneously, which can be used by using this open, free and at the same time complex platform. Dealing with financial, scientific and information exchanges. blockchain technology can be considered a network that has a function like a database, but is not centralized and is not controlled by an institution or organization. The information stored in the blockchain has some differences with the information stored in the database. Information in the blockchain is stored in blocks. This information can be anything and is not limited to transactions. Each block has a "hash" in addition to the information stored in it. Hash is a set of characters that special algorithms are used to create. 

In the petroleum industry, blockchains are shared or distributed data structures that can securely store digital transactions without using a central point. Most importantly, blockchain enables the automatic execution of smart contracts in peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. They can be thought of as databases that allow multiple users to make changes to the ledger simultaneously, which can lead to multiple versions of the chain. Instead of the ledger being managed by a trusted center, each individual network member has a copy of the chain of records and agrees on the valid state of the ledger. The precise method of achieving consensus is an ongoing area of research and may vary across a wide range of application domains. New transactions are cryptographically linked to previous transactions, which makes blockchain networks flexible and secure. Each network user can self-check whether transactions are valid, which provides transparency and reliable, tamper-proof records. 

The purpose of this research is to identify the international trade structures of oil derivatives using blockchain technology. In this regard, first by reviewing the verbal evidence of the research and identifying the concepts, we proceed to the open coding process, then the components of the axial coding paradigm including causal conditions, main phenomenon, strategies, background, intervening conditions and consequences are separated and based on categories. Subsets are proposed and finally linked according to selective coding.First, in open coding, the data are broken into separate parts, carefully examined to obtain similarities and differences, and questions about the phenomena that the data indicate. , are raised. Open coding is a part of the analysis that clearly deals with the naming (conceptualization) and categorization of the phenomena through careful examination of the data. Therefore, it can be said that there are two main steps in open coding, which are: conceptualization and categorization.

The investigation showed that the causal conditions include the complexity of the industry - ambiguity and uncertainty in situations, rapid technological developments - integration of technologically oriented companies with companies in this industry - changing competition conditions – necessi,ty and strategic importance.The central phenomenon includes the use of blockchain technology in international trade (petroleum derivatives), market monitoring, competitors monitoring, industry monitoring, company monitoring, document and law monitoring, creating an intelligent information system, industry interactions and exchanges, insurance matters and work contracts.Background conditions include national conditions (growth of social awareness in the oil and gas industry, domestic capacity and capabilities of the country), international conditions (imitating similar successful fields, forming a consortium to join technologies similar), organizational conditions (structural dimensions - globalization culture, technological culture, awareness). Intervention conditions include internal organizational conditions (structural factors - managerial factors - individual factors) and external conditions (economic conditions - political conditions).

Today, many companies and manufacturers are trying to enter the international market. Due to the new conditions of the current markets, it is no possible to enter such markets by trial and error. Therefore, considering the importance of this issue, this study tries to examine the effects of sanctions resulting from the Barjam and post-Barjam agreements on two selected industries that are domestically produced in Iran and traded internationally. In other words, if these industries are subject to sanctions, although they are not subject to sanctions, what will be the performance of these industries at the international level. Therefore, this study seeks to examine the variability of market share of these industries during sanctions or the absence of sanctions.

Since the economic activities of each country are not limited to the domestic environment, their competitiveness is not focused on the domestic environment, and each country has trade relations with different countries. One of the important factors for countries to choose trade partners is proximity and geographical proximity, the existence of economic and political relations between the two countries. Based on this, Ragman proposed a concept model called dual diamond for smaller countries, which was a combination of the internal characteristics of countries and their trading partners. Ragman states his model that a country's competitive advantage is due to the internal and external environment of countries, and the outcome of the diamond model factors in these two environments determines the competitiveness of countries.

According to the analysis of the effectiveness of two commodities drug and steel trade, one of which is not subject to sanctions and the other has been subject to sanctions, the use of sustainable market share index is more beneficial than other methods of evaluating comparative advantage and competitiveness. According to this index, a country's exports are successful if they can grow at least as much as global imports. This growth can be due to a focus on commodities whose consumption is increasing worldwide (commodity effect) or a focus on target markets whose consumption is growing faster than the global average (national effect) or the internal factors of the exporting country that increase Influence and share in target markets (competitive effect). Therefore, in order to estimate the above three effects, in this paper, the CMS method developed by Lamer and Stern has been used. 

About of drug commodities, in 2016 and 2019, the commodity effect of commodity drugs has been positive for the countries under study. But in 2017 and 2018, the commodity effect of the drug has been negatived for all countries surveyed. Country effect in 2016 and 2017 was positive for Germany, Russia and Norway, and in 2019 was positive only in Russia. about of steel, in 2016 and 2019, the negative commodity effect was obtained, and in 2017 and 2018, it was positive for all countries. In other words, in 2016 and 2019, the growth of steel imports slowed down than the growth of imports of other goods in the world, and in 2017 and 2018, it also accelerated. Country effect of steel, among target market countries, shows in 2016 for Thailand and Belgium, in 2017 for Italy, Spain, Turkey and Belgium, in 2018 for Italy, Thailand, Spain and Belgium and in 2019 is also a positive year for Thailand.

Stable Market Share Index (CMS) in relation to drug products shows that Iran's advantage in the drug market in 2018 and 2019 is not stable. The change in net exports (total effect) in all export markets of the country is negative, which goes beyond the negative effect of goods in 2018 and the positive effect in 2019, which is outside the will of the country, on the one hand due to improper selection of markets such as France, UK, Germany. And Norway (their country effect is negative) and on the other hand returns to the negative competitive effect in the last two years of the study period. In 2016, among the target markets studied, Germany and in 2017 and 2019, Russia are the best target markets for Iranian medicine. According to the index of stable market share in relation to steel goods (goods subject to sanctions), Iran in abuot of commodity effect in 2017 and 2018 has a better situation than in 2016 and 2019. Country effect shows that among the countries studied, Turkey is the worst and Thailand is the best destination for Iranian steel exports during the years under study. As the results show, the competitive effect is positive for all countries surveyed during 2016 and 2017. This means that Iran has been able to control a large part of the steel imports of these countries in these two years, but in 2018 and 2019, due to the withdrawal of the United States from the Barjam agreement and the direct impact of these sanctions, this effect has been negative.

Economic growth is one of the goals that every economy pursues, and the reason for this is the achievement of many benefits and advantages that are realized in the process of growth. Policy makers in every country seek to achieve a higher growth rate in their country.
Among the types of assets, housing is considered one of the most important socio-economic components in a country. It is also argued that in the new theories, the development of the housing sector is one of the drivers of economic growth, so in this article, the impact of investment in housing on the economic growth of Iran's provinces during the years 2006-2019 has been examined.

According to the point of view of macroeconomics, considering that between 21 and 24% of the country's GDP is related to the housing sector (during the construction and operation period), the housing sector is considered as the driving engine of economic growth and the factor that strengthens it in the country. From the point of view of consumption and investment, housing also plays a significant role in national accounts.
In general, there are three different views on the relationship between investment in real estate and economic growth. The first point of view emphasizes that investment in real estate affects economic growth. The second point of view shows that economic growth affects investment in real estate. According to the third perspective, there is a mutual causal relationship between investment in real estate and economic growth.

To estimate the research model, the econometric method of generalized moments of GMM has been used. The important feature of this estimation method is that there is no need to know the exact distribution of disturbance sentences. The main assumption of this method is based on the fact that disturbance terms are not correlated with instrumental variables. The method of generalized moments, by choosing the correct instrumental variable, by applying a weight matrix, can create a compatibility estimator for the conditions of heterogeneity and unknown autocorrelations.

The results show that the economic growth coefficient of the previous period was evaluated as 0.73. Based on the probability level corresponding to the t-statistic of this coefficient, it can be stated that the economic growth of the previous period had a positive and significant effect on the economic growth in the provinces of Iran. This result is consistent with economic theories and most previous studies such as Kazerooni et al (2018) and Mozaffari (2021). The variable coefficient of human capital has been evaluated as 0.16 and according to the probability level corresponding to its t-statistic, it can be stated that human capital has had a positive and significant effect on the economic growth of Iran's provinces. This result is in line with endogenous growth theories and previous empirical studies such as Kazerooni et al (2018) and Mozaffari (2021).
The size of the government also has a negative and significant effect on economic growth. So that the elasticity of the economic growth of Iran's provinces in relation to the government's current expenses is equal to -0.32.
The urbanization variable has a negative and significant effect on the economic growth of Iran's provinces. The negative sign of the variable coefficient of urbanization can be caused by the fact that the rate of urbanization has increased regardless of the process of providing the necessary infrastructure in the cities and increasing the expertise of the migrant workforce.

Investment in housing has a positive and significant effect on the economic growth of Iran's provinces during the research period. Which is compatible with the growth models and is in line with the studies conducted in the field of the effect of investment in real estate on economic growth, it is recommended that the government, in addition to paying special attention to capital expenditures in the field of housing; It has provided the necessary incentives and conditions for the investment of the private sector in the field of housing, so that the investment in this sector has increased, which on the one hand has increased the welfare and economic growth of the society, and on the other hand, it can reduce the lack of housing supply in this way, the Iranian market can be partially compensated. The effect of capital stock on the economic growth of Iran's provinces also has been positive and significant, which is in line with the existing theory in this field and previous studies, it is recommended that the government provide a mechanism and in the budgeting of the provinces. The discussion of the number of credits for the acquisition of capital assets should be given special attention in order to improve the economic growth of different regions of the country. Human capital and industrialization index have a positive and significant effect on the economic growth of Iran's provinces. Aggregation of industrial activities leads to growth by creating savings resulting from local aggregation. The effect of urbanization on the economic growth of Iran's provinces was negative and significant. Although the previous theory and studies show a positive and significant effect of urbanization rate on economic growth. Governments should pay attention to prevent the increase in the size of the government, because based on the results of this research, the economic growth has decreased with the increase in the size of the government, and the large involvement of the government in the economy can have negative consequences. This result is consistent with the results of most previous studies in developing countries.

Todays, encouraging the growth of small businesses has been a matter of concern and interest in most developed economies. It is often argued that entrepreneur and small businesses play a major role as an engine of economic growth and they contribute to social wealth through the creation of new businesses and jobs. For these reasons, governments have recently paid more attention to the role of entrepreneur and small businesses. In particular, innovative entrepreneur and small businesses with growth potential are seen as pioneers to develop new business fields in stagnated economies. The issue of business sustainability is important not only in big cities but also in medium and small cities and even informal settlements. In Iran, the phenomenon of informal settlements is one of the most important problems in big and small cities. Meanwhile, East Azerbaijan province, especially the metropolis of Tabriz, is not exempt from the phenomenon of informal settlements. Khalilabad of Tabriz city is one of the informal settlements, which according to the obtained estimates, has a population of 21 thousand and 373 people and is approximately 1.5% of the population of Tabriz city. Surveys have shown that in informal settlements, despite the high capacities in the field of entrepreneurship, the use of these potentials for the development of employment and the labor market has been neglected, and the continuation and stabilization of these types of jobs and businesses is always a problem for entrepreneurs.

Sustainability comes from sustainable development, which simply means development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Scholars have defined sustainability differently, with complicated meanings and interpretations. Some researchers, defines sustainability as the balancing of the environment, social and economic aspects. Meanwhile, the stabilization of small businesses and entrepreneurs plays an important role in the economic growth and development of countries.
Entrepreneur and Small Businesses are becoming increasingly important for the creation and development of a modern, dynamic and knowledge-based economy.  This is because of their capacity to promote entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial skills, and because of their ability   to be flexible and adapt quickly to a changing market, and to generate new jobs.  Entrepreneur and Small Businesses is the backbone of the economy. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reports   These enterprises make a major contribution in the field of innovation and support regional development and social cohesion.  Also, Entrepreneur and Small Businesses in most low-income countries give significant contribution to GDP growth and the creation of new jobs. For this reason, the identification of external and internal factors affecting the development of Entrepreneur and Small Businesses in informal in informal settlements is very important.
 Researchers divide the causes of instability into two categories: external and internal factors. The external factors of business instability are: 1- Features of the economic system, 2- Competition, 3- Rapid changes in technology, 4- Commercial fluctuations.
 The internal factors of business instability are: 1- Inefficiency of management, 2- Insufficient sales, 3- Pricing Mistakes, 3- Legal-financial issues, 4- Social-value barriers

In this study, Questionnaire was used for information collection. The questionnaire was validated after some revisions following consulting with professionals and experts. An interpretative equation (ISM) is used to analyze the results of the findings. Interpretive Structural Modeling ISM or Interpretive Structural Modeling is a method for designing the pattern of complex and multiple relationships between the variables of a phenomenon. This method is a type of structural analysis based on the interpretation paradigm. Designing an Interpretive Structural Model (ISM) is a method to investigate the effect of each variable on other variables; In this method, the effective and essential factors are first identified, and then, using the method that has been presented, the relationships between these factors and the way to achieve progress by these factors have been presented.

Based on the findings and affecting factors on development of small businesses and entrepreneurs (Financial-Economical, social-psychological, environmental, legal-political, communication-information, technical-technological, marketing, infrastructure-institutional, personality-individual and physical-spatial factors), variables were classified in 5 different levels. After analyzing the MICMAC, the variables were divided into three groups: influence, independent and dependent variables. Since, according to the results, Financial-economical, institutional- infrastructural, and technical-technological factors are one of the most basic factors in the sustainable development of small businesses and entrepreneurs (Khalilabad of Tabriz).

The results of the research show that financial-Economical, social-psychological, physical-spatial, infrastructural-institutional, marketing, communication-informational, technical-technological and personality-individual factors influence on the sustainability of small businesses and entrepreneurs. Also, because of the importance of the market in the field of small businesses, it is necessary for the government to increase its support in the field of providing suitable platforms (economical, legal, infrastructural, technical factors, etc.), by using the facilities and equipment of other executive bodies.

Economic growth in a country is always one of the important goals and achieving this goal requires growth in all areas related to that economy. Achieving this goal is possible when the competitiveness of the regions increases and its economic performance improves and economic growth in all economic regions tends to a steady trend and becomes so-called convergent. One of the factors that have been considered in recent years as a factor explaining economic growth is the proximity and spatial position of regions. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to investigate the effects of spatial urban spillover on economic growth of the provinces and also the role of urbanization on the rate of convergence of provinces.

One of the important issues in urban economics is how the relationship between urban population growth and economic growth. In this regard, Lefebvre (2009) considered the economic structure and economic growth. According to Bertinley and Black (2004), the channels through which urbanization affects economic growth: First, cities play an important role in the economies and societies of developed and developing countries by providing opportunities for people to benefit from educational, employment and health services in the economic structure of the city.
Second, urbanization allows businesses to take advantage of economies of scale due to externalities, and this makes it possible for companies to specialize and reduce transaction costs. Third, urbanization is a major factor in entrepreneurship. The concentration of population and businesses in cities makes the urban population easily finance their idea and provide the conditions for promoting business ideas and access to local markets with higher consumer density, and ultimately there are spillover effects, these positive external effects of development. Cities in neighboring areas are identified through migration and active interaction. Therefore, according to these theories, there is no separate region and the growth of each region is affected by the growth of the surrounding regions. Thus, despite the effects of urban spillovers, the economic growth of the provinces is converging. In the economic literature, the main idea of ​​convergence is that the lower per capita economy experiences a higher growth rate than the higher per capita economy.

Econometric researchers believe that due to the impact of economic performance of an area on neighboring areas, if the spatial dependence between observations and these effects are not taken into account, the conventional estimation method will be biased and the effect of factors trying to study them will be erroneous. Since the variables used in this study have a spatial aspect and are affected by spatial correlation, and considering that the main purpose of this study is to analyze the role of urbanization in the spatial convergence rate of the provinces, the spatial econometric model is used. Consider each other's observations and the effect of changes in dependent and explanatory variables on neighboring observations. Spatial growth models explicitly include spatial factors in growth models. These models pay more attention to spillovers and seek to find the main drivers of long-term growth in space.

Before estimation of spatial models, to emphasize the need to use spatial patterns in this study, diagnostic tests were performed to estimate the pattern as panel data. As stated in the methodology section, the research model is estimated in three stages. In the first stage, the absolute convergence model is estimated in which there is no urbanization variable. In the second stage, to evaluate the effect of urbanization on convergence and its speed, conditional beta convergence is estimated in terms of urbanization effects, and in the third stage, the space camera model is estimated in terms of urban spatial effects. In absolute beta convergence, it is assumed that the model parameters are the same and the only cause of changes in the economic growth of the provinces are their initial values. Another important point that should be considered before estimation is the spatial effects test that was analyzed in the above sections and therefore the estimation patterns should be estimated in terms of these spatial effects. The results of the first stage estimate show that the sign of convergence coefficient is negative and significant and indicates the existence of absolute beta convergence, i.e., provinces with lower per capita production have faster economic growth than provinces with higher per capita production. Convergence rate is estimated to be 0.0563, This coefficient indicates that about 5.63% of the gap between the initial state of per capita production and the state of equilibrium with its stability is eliminated annually. With the introduction of the urbanization variable into the model, the use of absolute beta convergence is no longer correct because economic growth is also affected by other factors such as urbanization, so in this case conditional beta convergence is raised. In the second stage, the results show that the inclusion of the urbanization variable in the convergence equation leads to a decrease in the estimated coefficient for the initial per capita production variable. In other words, the convergence rate has increased by 1.45% compared to the previous case. The positive effect of urbanization on the convergence of provinces.
Finally, the general convergence hypothesis that other parameters are not constant is investigated and the conditional beta convergence is estimated using the space camera model in terms of other effective variables. The results indicate that in this case, each province has an average rate of 14.29% are moving towards sustainable growth. Therefore, it can be claimed that in terms of direct effects and spatial effects (spillover) of urbanization, the rate of convergence increases.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the economic convergence among the provinces of Iran during the years 2005 to 2017. For this purpose, two types of convergence, absolute beta and conditional beta, were investigated by using spatial growth models. Therefore, first, by performing Moran I test and LM test, the necessity of using spatial models was confirmed. In the present study, in order to better explain the role of urbanization in the rate of convergence of the provinces, the research model was examined in three stages. The results of all models show that the provinces of the country are economically convergent and the existence of absolute and conditional beta convergence between the provinces is confirmed, i.e., less developed provinces have a higher economic growth rate and provinces that are stable from equilibrium. They are more distant; they have a higher economic growth rate. Considering the significance and positive effects of urban spatial spillover, it can be concluded that increasing the interaction and return of citizens to neighboring areas in the provinces due to the effects of the spillover will cause economic growth in neighboring provinces and this will increase the speed of economic convergence.

Mining activities have flourished globally since the beginning of the 21st century. Therefore, it has a major share in the economies of many countries, especially underdeveloped countries and their regions. The mining sector has its effects on the entire economy of a country or region in terms of employment, value added, foreign investment, taxes and the production of new materials for use in the production of products. Contrary to popular belief, mineral-rich economies have advantages over less prosperous countries, but for a variety of reasons, the abundance of resources does not necessarily lead to economic prosperity. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate and analyze empirically between the mining sector of Yazd province with the industry, agriculture and services of this province using the time series technique and by examination whether there is evidence of positive or negative overflow from the mine to other sectors, to be able to help the previous literature as well. This study uses the vector autoregression model and Granger causality to experimentally investigate the relationship between the mining sector and other economic sectors in Yazd province.

Although Yazd province has economic benefits as a result of existing mining activities, this does not mean a significant reduction in poverty or sustainable growth. This suggests that people living in the communities around the mines may not benefit from the mining activities. For this reason, in these regions, there is a concern that the extracted natural resources will be a wasteful asset and will create a degraded and damaged environment after the completion of the extraction projects. Thus, since the 1980s, numerous studies have challenged the view that natural resources are a blessing to less developed countries. The resource curse hypothesis suggests that economic growth in many mineral and natural resource countries is low or negative over long periods of time.

The method used in the research is analytical-descriptive. In the other hand, in order to apply the theory proposed in the theoretical foundations of the research with the existing reality of Yazd province, as a case study, causal relationships between variables were examined by Granger causality test and also using econometric methods.

The findings of this study according to the Granger causality test show that there is a dynamic interaction between the mining, industry and agriculture sectors in the economy of Yazd province. Thus, the findings of the Granger causality test show that changes in the mining sector cause or introduce changes in both industry and agriculture. From these findings, it can be concluded that the mining sector of Yazd province in recent years has been able to cause changes in the growth rate of industry and agriculture in this province. Findings of the impulse response function show that the agricultural, service and industrial sectors in Yazd province react positively to shocks from the mining sector in changes in growth rates but in the long run and according to the findings of the impulse response function, these effects lose their effect over time.  

According to the findings of this research in the long run, due to what the curse of resources has been expressed, the mining sector in Yazd province can not be the cause for the economic development of this province. For economic development in Yazd province, it is necessary that all economic sectors in the province, especially the economic sector of mining as a subject of research can cause positive shocks in other sectors in the long run, but what the findings of this study indicate in the long run for the mining sector of Yazd province, the opposite has been shown. In the other hand, according to the experimental results of the present study, the findings of analysis of variance showed that the studied sectors in the economy of Yazd province in the long run explain a significant share of each sector and are involved in each other's growth rate, so it can be said that in regional development, development cannot be achieved by relying on one sector. In addition, it is necessary to create a mechanism that allows the exploitation and addition of value to mineral resources, because this sector can be used as an incentive for economic growth and development.

The concept of competitiveness was often formed in response to the question why some countries are richer than others. A question that was raised since the period of Adam Smith and is a concern of many governments until today. So that in recent years, the concept of competitiveness has become a common term in urban, regional and national economic analyzes and policies. Globalization and the economy based on information knowledge and removing the borders of countries have gradually reduced the geographical position of competition from national to regional scale, and since the 1990s, the concept of regional competitiveness has become a dominant issue in the public circles of developed countries and some developing countries. It was done so that countries can achieve a clear set of policies to strengthen regional development. In the meantime, East Azarbaijan province with 20 cities has high potential capacities and advantages in various fields, which has made it different from many other provinces in the country. And its competition with other provinces of the country. Therefore, one of the most important platforms for creating a competitive city is to pay attention to the common and current indicators in the field of competition. Because knowing the effective indicators in the competitiveness of different areas and the inequality between them is considered as the basis of work in planning, which causes inequality to be eliminated and the current situation to be transformed into the desired situation. In this regard, in order to measure the level of competition between regions, various indicators have been presented at the global level, and in this article, different indicators have been combined with each other, and due to the lack of access to many indicators, the proposed indicators have been replaced.

Since the 1990s, competitiveness has become an important theory in the public policy of developed countries and then one of the key issues in urban and regional planning theories. Various views have been presented about it. The first point of view is the doctrine of mercantilists, who believe that the most intuitive definition of competitiveness is the criterion of action and consider the economic competitiveness of countries in international contexts as possible in the way of companies, and their prosperity and recovery from existing crises depends on increasing the competitiveness of the national economy and establishing the trade balance is positive. The second point of view in this field is the Porter doctrine. Porter extended the concept of competitiveness, which was only discussed at the level of enterprises, in the mid-1990s, believing in the importance of the role of the external business environment in creating competitiveness to the territory level. The third point of view is the Paul Grossman. This point of view has been raised in the criticism of Porter's point of view, and the competitiveness which was mentioned in Porter's point of view as the meaning of increasing economic productivity in comparison with competitors for the economy of countries has been empirically unfounded and has called the comparison of place with the company as baseless.

The current research is descriptive and analytical in terms of application and nature. Library method was used to collect data and Prometheus multi-criteria decision-making method was used for data analysis.

In the current research, 39 indicators for 2006 and 45 variables for 2016 were used in 6 different dimensions in order to investigate the competitiveness of the cities of East Azarbaijan province. The used indices have been descaled after softening by the norm method, then to express the relative importance of the used variables, each of them has been weighted using Shannon's entropy method. The results of variable weighting show that in 2006, variables such as the number of literate people, the number of high school students, the number of middle school students, employment rate, teaching staff and the number of active landlines and for 2015, the total number of literate people , the number of electricity subscribers, the number of active fixed telephone lines, the number of high school students, the number of middle school students, the number of elementary school students, the number of pharmacies, the number of dentists, the number of library members, the number of veterinarians, and the number of state bank branches have the highest weight. To other variables have been obtained. In the following, after determining the weight of each of the desired variables, using the Prometheus method, the competitiveness level of the cities of the province has been leveled. Based on the results obtained from the Prometheus method for 2016, the cities of the province are placed in 5 levels from very high competitiveness to very low competitiveness. Of these, one city is in the highly competitive category, 4 cities with high competitiveness, 6 cities with low competitiveness, and 5 cities are in the level of cities with very low competitiveness. Also, the results of data analysis for 2016 show that one city is at a very high level, four cities are at a high level, seven cities are at an average level, six cities are at a low level of competitiveness and two cities are at a very low level of competitiveness.

By comparing the level of competitiveness of the cities of East Azarbaijan province in 2015 compared to 2005, it shows that the greatest improvement is related to the cities of Maragheh, Mianeh, Kalibar and Azarshahr, which is mainly due to the development of communication networks, the growth of mining and industrial activities and the expansion of tourism in the cities. It has been mentioned. On the other hand, Varzeghan, Shabestar and Osku cities have improved less than other cities, and because of this is different between cities. Also, in terms of competitiveness, the cities of the province have improved in 2015 compared to 2005, so that out of 5 cities that were in the category of cities with very low competitiveness in 2005, they have decreased to two cities in 2015 and more. The cities have had a positive movement.

Nearly half of the world’s population, including four out of five people living below the poverty line, live in rural areas. Extreme poverty is concentrated mainly in rural areas. Rural people also generally have less access to education, health and other essential services. Rural development is an important and key strategy to achieve sustainable development in many developing countries. According to the World Bank, rural development is defined as “a strategy aiming at the improvement of economic and social living conditions, focusing on a specific group of poor people in a rural area. It assists the poorest group among the people living in rural areas to benefit from development Villages are the main focus of Afghanistan's economy because a large part of the Afghan population (approximately 71%) lives and works in rural areas so that out of the total population of Afghanistan, which reached 32.9 million people in 2019, 23.4 million lived in villages. In fact, 70% of the total population of Afghanistan lives in villages where the rate of poverty is 61%.
Therefore, new job opportunities can be found in the villages, and one of the most important grounds to achieve sustainable development in Afghanistan is the focus on the development of villages, which brings regional development. In other words, it can be acknowledged that regional development in Afghanistan depends on the development of villages.

Therefore, institutional economics was used in this dissertation as a suitable theoretical framework to analyze the problems of developing countries, including Afghanistan. Institutions are made up of formal constraints (rules, laws, constitutions), informal constraints (norms of behavior, conventions, and self-imposed codes of conduct), and their enforcement characteristics. All potentials in the region should be used by utilizing the institutional approach and capacity to achieve sustainable development in rural areas

Hence, the library-documentary method was used to collect data. The indicators of sustainable rural development were initially extracted by studying and evaluation the indicators formulated by organizations, international assemblies, and reliable papers. To localize these indicators according to the rural areas of Afghanistan, a five-point Likert scale questionnaire was designed, and an initial list of indicators was agreed upon by 30 experts of rural development in Afghanistan. Then, the most important ones were extracted and in the second step, the hierarchical analysis method was employed to determine the priority and importance of the indicators. Finally, a pairwise comparison questionnaire was completed by 30 participants and the weight and importance of these factors were determined using Expert Choice software.

The findings indicated that the economic environment with an importance factor of 0.34 accounts for the first priority of factors affecting the rural development of Afghanistan and the second, third, and fourth priority is assigned to the institutional environment with an importance factor of (34%), social environment (20%), and ecological environment (13%), respectively. The inconsistency rate of pairwise comparisons at this level was equal to 0.07, reflecting the validity of the results.

Thus, the first step to achieve sustainable rural development is to make changes in the economic structure of Afghanistan to create high economic growth and increase productivity, employment, and income. Agriculture is the main element of providing livelihood in the economic structure of rural areas of different countries, including Afghanistan. Moreover, it is the most important and the only economic element of villages in most development programs. Since traditional agricultural activities are performed in most rural areas of Afghanistan, the production level of agricultural products is very low compared to other countries throughout the world. It was found that the current production model of this country in the agricultural sector cannot create the economic growth necessary to achieve sustainable development, which requires a fundamental evaluation of the adopted solutions.
The second priority of rural development was found to be the institutional environment. According to the findings of this paper, the most important aspect of the institutional environment is good governance. Afghanistan was among the five countries that experienced the highest average annual compound growth rate (CAGR = 2.33%) in the governance index between 1996 and 2020; however, the very poor performance of this country in important sub-indicators such as "political stability and absence of violence and terrorism", "rule of law", and "corruption control" did not lead to a change in the development situation of this country in general and rural development in particular.
The social environment is the third priority of rural development in Afghanistan. Literacy and education were identified as the most important aspects of this environment and accounted for the first priority. With regard to the high rate of illiteracy in Afghanistan, the government must invest to provide suitable opportunities for public education and increase people's skills and awareness.
The environment accounts for the fourth priority in rural development. Accordingly, the experts introduced agriculture as the most important priority of the environment. The excessive use of chemical fertilizers and poisons and inappropriate use of production inputs to increase performance in Afghanistan in the last two decades have destroyed the environment and doubled the importance of attention to the stability of the agricultural system, continuity of production, and preservation of natural resources.