فصلنامه پژوهش های رشد و توسعه اقتصادی
پیاپی 4 (پاییز 1390)

This paper has studied the effect of trade openness on income inequality in Iran and its ten major trading partners during the period 1990-2006. Following Spilimbergo and Londono (1999), the paper has specified an econometric model to explore the effect of trade openness on income inequality through focusing on relative production endowments, which include capital, agricultural land and human resources, including uneducated, elementary-secondary and higher educated labor force. The specified model has been estimated by the panel data approach over 1990-2006. The empirical results reveal the fact that trade openness increases inequality in those countries which have a higher rate of uneducated labor.

Many studies have shown positive contribution of financial sector development to economic growth. However some new results indicate that the previous findings do not hold especially in recent years. The main purpose in this study is to examine the structural break between the financial sector development and economic growth in different countries with different levels of income by using the index of bank credit to private sector. For this purpose we use an empirical endogenous growth model and a panel data consisting of 45 countries for 48 years, and test for nonlinearity. We found endogenously structural changes in the relationship of different income groups. The results confirm that the structural changes have occurred, and that the points of structural changes vary with the level of economic development.

The main objective of this paper is to investigate the effect of research and development expenditures on the Iranian industry market Share over the period of 1995:1-2007:4. For this purpose, we convert the annual time series data to the seasonal time series data by using of JMALTI econometric software. The main model of this paper has been estimated by nonlinear LSTAR approach. The result of this study reveals that there is nonlinear positive and significant relationship between research and development expenditures and market share of Iranian industry sector.

The main input of the knowledge based economy (KBE) is knowledge and its application. This model requires an authentic fundamental knowledge and preparations in which the effective human capital has the main weight. So the main subject of this research is that, under conditions in which the global economic relations are knowledge oriented, importing technologies, expanding the tertiary education and following developed countries policies, without considering the infrastructure of KBE, cannot be the proper solution for developing countries. As education has always had close relationship with economic development, education in general and basic education in specific has been considered as essential ways to operate in this new model and also as one the main pillars in KBE. “Development in basic education has direct relationship with the development of KBE index” is our hypothesis. In this survey a descriptive- analytical and also cause and effect procedures have been chosen to deal with key definitions of this era. Then, using the World Bank knowledge based economy measurement (Knowledge assessment measurement-KAM), the status of knowledge economy index (KEI) in Iran for the years 1995-2009, will be investigated. According to the findings of this research, it can be concluded that the function in Iran in the field of providing a kind of basic education which can be a mean to KBE, has been weak. This weakness has reasons such as a rentier atmosphere, lack of attention toward the importance of basic education in comparison to tertiary education in macro planning and improper strategies in the field of education. So having educational adjustments from basic to higher education, developing core competencies and establishing an effective and continuous relation between basic education, higher education and labor market can lead to an improvement of an institutional framework and of course achieving to KBE.

Globalization, the process of considerable increase in international trade, global exchanges and markets’ integration as a fundamental characteristic, are emerging inevitably. Investigating the way in which this process affects economic variables, can be a guidance of decision making for policy makers. Considering structural economic differences between urban and rural societies in Iran and using 1350-1386 Iran’s economy dataset, first we compared the efficiency of VAR and VEC models with artificial neural network (ANN) approach in forecasting measure of income distribution inequality of urban societies and finally the best model (ANN) has used as an out-of-sample forecasting tool in different designed scenarios from 1387 to 1395. Choosing ANN model, decrease in urban societies’ income inequality during globalization process, is the main result.

The analysis of efficiency trend by applying window Data Envelopment Analysis and research about environmental and structural forces affecting on efficiency in electricity distribution companies after vertical decomposition and ownership change in Iran is very important object. On the basis of circuit density, companies decomposed in two groups with low circuit density (group1) and high circuit density (group2). On the basis of research results, window efficiency mean of first and second groups under the variable and constant returns to scale with respect to metafrontier have had increasing and decreasing trend respectively. But second group efficiency mean is higher than first group efficiency mean into whole windows. Shiraz city, Golestan and Mazandaran electricity distribution companies in second group have had unsatisfactory performance with respect to metafrontier and group frontier in comparison to other companies. High circuit density companies have had fewer gaps between group performance and potential better performance or metafrontier. Network load factor increasing would be led to lower efficiency and transformator load factor increasing would be led to higher efficiency. Privatization has insignificant effect on efficiency in the short-run but has significant effect in the long-run.

Good governance is a concept that was proposed in the development literature as a key to the development puzzle in the late 90’s. This concept is derived from the theory of institutionalization and is the product of three institutions including government, private sector and civil society. World Bank defines good governance based on six indicators including: voice and accountability, political stability, no violence, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law and control of corruption. This paper has examined the effect of good governance indicators (prepared by the World Bank) on human development index (HDI) as a criterion for development, in ASEAN countries during 2000-2009 by using panel data analysis. UNDP claims that the hdi is superior to per-capita gdp for measuring development. The result finds that among six indicators of good governance, political stability, no violence, government effectiveness, regulatory quality and rule of law have positive and statistically significant effect on human development index.