فصلنامه پژوهشهای اقتصادی (رشد و توسعه پایدار)
سال نهم شماره 1 (بهار1388)

Sustainable economic growth is one of the most important macroeconomic objectives. There are various factors affecting economic growth including trade and extent of the market. The aim of this study is to examin the effect of trade and extent of the market on economic growth in Iran and its trading partners using the data over the period 1995-2005. Trading partners comprise Germany, Italy, Singapore, Netherlands, China, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, India, France, South Korea, Kuwait, Sweden, Switzerland, USA, Azerbaijan, Greece, Pakistan, Spain, Turkey, Bahrain, Austria, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, the United Kingdom, Qatar, Brazil, Armenia, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Syrian Arab Republic. A growth regression model is used to model the relationship between economic growth, trade and extent of the market. The OLS technique is employed to estimate the growth model. Three openness measures are include in the model. They comprise nominal openness, real openness and geography-fitted real openness. We find that trade and domestic market size are robust determinants of economic growth over the 1995-2005 period when trade openness is measured as the US dollar value of imports and exports relative to GDP in PPP US$ (real openness). When trade openness is measured as the US dollar value of imports and exports relative to GDP in exchange rate US$ (nominal openness). However, trade and the size of market are non-robust determinants of growth. We argue that real openness is the more appropriate measure of trade. Moreover, when geography-fitted real openness is considered as a measure of trade openness, it has a strong effect on economic growth in countries with smaller domestic market.

This paper is an attempt to investigate the impacts of macroeconomic variables on capital market in Iran using quarterly observations for the period 1991Q2 to 2007Q1. The macroeconomic variables considered in the model include GDP, prices, money and exchange rate. Arbitrage pricing theory is considered to model the variables. Standard unit root tests are conducted to investigate the order of integration in time series used in the study. Cointegration analysis is employed to estimate the model. More specifically, the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) framework and error correction model (ECM) are employed. The results show that stock price has a positive effect on GDP and price level, but a negative effect on money stock and exchange rate. The estimated coefficient of the error correction term is 15 percent indicating the speed of adjustment in response to deviation from the long run equilibrium is relatively low.

From exports point of view, competitiveness concept is a very restricted approach. Competitiveness is a reflection of microeconomic decisions, socio-political problems and public welfare and it must also potentially be able to help countries achieve a sustainable value added creation. Due to this reason, most studies on this issue consider competitiveness in terms of efficiency and labor productivity. This paper uses competitiveness indexes and competitiveness factor of international management development to examine the country's competitiveness power such as knowledge based competitiveness, education, technology and information infrastructures, innovation and economic and institutional performances. The results indicate that a quadratic form explains the relationship between competitiveness and human capital. It confirms that the average years of schooling has a positive effect on labor productivity. Moreover, technology and information infrastructures (ICT), defined as the ratio of ICT expenditures over GDP, has a positive effect on labor productivity. Government size and the degree of openness have a negative effect on competitiveness. Economic and institutional performances have a positive effect on competitiveness, the more freedom of speech, the higher the competitiveness power.

Nowadays housing is not considered merely as a matter of shelter anymore. But it is also considered as a political and economic commodity. Not only housing is one of the most important assets for householders, who hold it to accept higher risks in financial markets, but also it is an indispensable good without any substitute. Recent decades, housing sector has encountered inflationary recessions and booms along with interminable price growth in Iran. This inflation rate is as a result of excessive increases in liquidity, which is due to the spending of oil dollars. However, the inflation rate may be controllable in consumption and tradable goods by some leverages such as imports while it is not controllable in nontradable goods such as housing and land. Consequently, it brings about severe and unpredictable volatilities in the price of this critical sector. In this article, we study the major determinants of housing sector with special emphasis on the relationship between oil shocks and housing inflation. The findings show that during the period 1973 to 2005 the effect of the population growth rate, liquidity growth rate, the growth rate of loans paid by Bank Maskan and (positive and negative) oil shocks on housing inflation are statistically significant and consistent with the theory while the effect of inflation rate on housing inflation is statistically insignificant.

This paper investigates the determinants of private investment in Iran over the period of 1382-2004. First, the variables are tested for unit root and then the long run private investment equation is estimated using cointegration technique. The variables considered in the model include GDP, government investment, inflation, infrastructure and institutions such as rules and regulations, property rights, corruption and social Securities. The results indicate that GDP and infrastructure positively affect private investment while the institution factors such as rules and regulations, property rights, social securities and corruptions negatively affect private investment.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of increasing electricity price on compensated variation (CV) and deadweight loss (DWL) of different income groups in Iran over the 1967-2004 period. An autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model is employed and five electricity demand functions are estimated for different income groups and based the estimates, CV and DWL are calculated. The effects of electricity price increase on CV and DWL are examined and the following results are obtained: • Comparing CV in different income groups shows that CV increases from the poor to the rich. • Comparing DWL in different income groups shows that DWL increases from the poor to the rich. • By increasing electricity price and using direct subsidy, the welfare of low and middle income groups increase while the welfare of high income groups decrease.

Intensive usage of farm inputs has resulted in environment pressure. The pressure is mainly due to the widely use of chemical inputs and the overdraft of groundwater resources. So, there is a conflict between environmental objectives in the form of lowering resources use and farmers’ objectives in form of maximizing production by using more inputs. In this study, environmental and farmers’ objectives are considered by using multi objective programming. Environmental objectives include the reduction of water, chemical fertilizer, and pistons consumption and farmer' objectives consist of increasing gross return and decreasing risk. The data required to this study are collected from Marvdashst agricultural crops farmers in Fars province. Based on the results, there are trade offs among objectives and a desired combination of objectives. The findings show that the crops of cucumber, canola and barley are consistent with both environmental policy makers and farmers’ considerations. Onion and wheat crops are important from the farmers’ point of view rather than environmental policy makers. Rice, maize and hay maize crops have no priority to cultivate.

Exchange rate and inflation rate consistently affect stock price and the return on stocks. Since such effects could impact income distribution, it is important to study such issue carefully. In this paper an attempt is made to study the impact of exchange rate and inflation rate on the real returns as well as the stock price index in Tehran stock market. In this paper, we use a vector autoregreesion (VAR) model as well a vector error correction model (VECM) to examine the relationship among variables. This study uses monthly data from 1983M4 through 2007M3. The results indicate that there exists a stable long–run relationship among the variables included in the model. Exchange rate and inflation rate positively affect the real rate of stock return. However, the impact of inflation rate is stronger than the impact of the exchange rate.