فصلنامه پژوهش ها و سیاست های اقتصادی
پیاپی 39-40 (پاییز و زمستان 1386)

Since 1990s, the evolutions of global economy are moving towards integration and convergence of economies in the form of regionalization. Trade and capital flows play a vital role in these evolutions. In other words, economic globalization has been accompanied by the evolutions in international trade and capital markets. In this paper, regarding the importance and the role of industry and mines in the backward and forward linkages with other economic sectors and their significance in the economic development, the globalization in Iranian industry and mines is examined by using the two indices of the level of international trade and the degree of trade integration. Based on this research work, it is shown that the trade competition in industrial sector in Iran has advanced, to some extent, beyond the domestic borders. However, the mining sector stands at a higher level as compared with the international standard. Hence, a comparative advantage has been attained in some Iranian mineral activities.

According to economic theories, the firm's growth and development would result from higher output using a fixed amount of input, or fixed output resulting from lower levels of inputs which are examples of efficiencies and productivities. This paper, after a brief review of the basics of theoretical foundations of measuring efficiency and defining and analyzing the efficiency based on the microeconomic concept of production, attempts at measuring efficiency in the banking industry. The scope of this paper consists of the followings: two approaches to production and intermediaries in the definition of banking efficiency, three different levels of decision–making regarding the assumptions used in measuring the efficiency, the mathematical form of the four linear programming models specified for measuring the efficiency of the state-owned banking system in Isfahan province using cross section data of 1382, the identification of the efficient and non-efficient banks, remedies to improve the input and output, and finally suggestions for improving the levels of efficiencies in the banking industry. The results show that in the year 1382, four banks, i.e., Bank Melli, Bank Maskan, Bank Refah and Bank for Export Promotion can be classified as efficient banks whereas five banks, i.e., Bank Saderat, Bank Mellat, Bank Sepah, Bank Tejarat, and Bank Keshavarzi are identified as inefficient. With the assumption of constant return to scale of 0.857 and with the assumption of variable return to scale of 0.979 and input minimization with respect to pure technical or managerial efficiencies of 0.979, and the scale efficiency of 0.867 and using the assumption of maximizing the output, the average efficiency are 0.983 and 0.865, respectively.

In this paper we intend to rank 5 Iranian commercial banks: Bank Melli Iran, Bank Saderat, Bank Mellat, Bank Sepah and Bank Tejarat, which have 12075 branches across the country with 185 supervisory offices. The number of the supervisory offices among these banks varies from 33 to 42. The Monetary Authorities have shown interests in ranking the banks as well as determining their efficiencies. There are international institutions such as the Bankers, which deal with ranking banks in different countries. We have tried to measure the operational efficiencies of the mentioned five Iranian banks. First we provide a brief history of these banks. Then, three major methods of ranking, i.e., principal components, numerical taxonomy and a combination of these two methods are discussed. On the basis of these analyses, we define 24 different indices for ranking each of these five banks. Input and output variables are then defined using Data Envelop Analysis (D.E.A), for estimation of bank efficiencies. Finally with the use of the statistical inference it is shown that three out of these five banks are equally efficient with no major differences.

The theoretical foundations of the Dutch Disease are considered in this paper, and using the appropriate indices its existence in Iranian economy is tested. On the basis of theoretical considerations, the initial impact of injecting foreign exchanges derived from exporting raw materials is the strengthening of the national currency and the growth of the money supply within the national economy. This will not only induce higher levels of aggregate consumption but will also, in conjunction with the non-optimal structure of the production system, increase the fixed cost of capital and the nominal money cost of the production by increasing the ratio of the price index for non-tradable goods to that of the tradables. The above-mentioned factors, together with the incompetitiveness of domestic industrial products are usually referred to as the symptoms of Dutch Disease. One of the main and significant indices for testing the existence of Dutch Disease from the theoretical and statistical points of view is the ratio of the price index of non-tradable goods to that of the tradables. Unfortunately, the statistical data for such a dichotomy does not exist in Iran. The statistical data derived from a proxy index indicates that with the growth of oil export revenues the ratio of the price indices of tradable goods to the non-tradables, which have experienced smooth growth during the past years, have recently shown accelerations. This signifies and supports the hypothesis of the existence of a mild Dutch Disease in Iranian economy especially during the recent years, though the reservation exists as to the concrete conclusions based on its existence.