نشریه اقتصاد و تجارت نوین
سال هفتم شماره 1 (پیاپی 26، تابستان و پاییز 1390)

The evaluation of competitiveness in the various aspects of economy encourages policy makers to investigate national policies more deeply. Surely, one of the main sectors of economy in a country is industry and its competitiveness. Therefore, in this paper, we benchmarked different international experiences and used structural equation modeling (SEM) based on industrial competitiveness theories to design industrial competitiveness composite index. In this paper, 95 indicators in seven dimensions are evaluated to identify industrial competitiveness of 134 countries using the SEM and confirmatory factor analysis methods. Moreover, the position of Iran is identified in this index in comparison with other countries.

The importance and urgency of growing entrepreneurial intention among students and graduates have attracted the attention of policy makers and scholars for past years in Iran. The purpose of this paper is to identify the deterrents of entrepreneurial intentions in the University of Tehran’s students. A research-made questionnaire is used accompanied by interviews with experts to collect data analyzed in this study. The population consisted of 1647 master students from three colleges (College of Engineering, College of Psychology and Education and Faculty of Entrepreneurship). Samples (138 persons) are selected via random sampling. The conceptual framework of research is designed using synthetic application of the prior models exist in the literature. The results of this paper indicate that, although in the three dimensions of attitude, social norms and perceived self-efficacy, specific deterrents are not observed, 89 percent of students have perceived good social assistance from the society. Students think that the university isn’t persuasive of new ideas. They do not receive entrepreneurial skills in the university, and thus the social/economic condition is not suitable for launching new businesses. Accordingly there are not public and private sponsoring institutions and further recruitment of expert human resources and issue of legal licenses for new businesses are difficult and finally, access to appropriate social networks, suppliers, investors and customers is not easy and receipt of information for starting new businesses is hard.

Trades as well as trade policies have major impact on economic productivity. In fact, trade freedom policies tend to improve economic efficiency and bring about a better allocation of resources through enhancing competition in economies. This study examines the role of trade liberalization on the total factor productivity. The hypothesis tested is that trade liberalization has a positive impact on productivity. The countries studied to test this hypothesis are a group of Islamic countries which are the members of the organization of the Islamic cooperation (OIC). The data covers the period between 1985 and 2009 using a panel data approach. The ratio of exports plus imports to GDP for each country is used as an index for trade liberalization. The model used in this study is based on the work done by Miller and Apadiya. The results indicate that trade liberalization among selected Islamic countries has had a major impact on the total factor productivity. Moreover, inflation, human capital and the deviations from PPP have statistically significant impact on the total factor productivity during the period of the study.

This paper aims to design appropriate method for know-how valuation. Know-how is one of main assets in new businesses especially in high-tech industries. On the other side, development organizations implement supportive mechanisms in order to create and expand know-how and new technologies. Therefore, determining value of these assets is an important issue. In this article after defining know-how and its typology based on readiness level, a new method is introduced for know-how valuation based on methods in literature as well as benchmarking lessons. These methods have been proposed based on the development level of technologies. They conclude bench-top know how, prototype know how and commercialized know how or technology. To verify capability of suggested algorithms in know how valuation, three cases have been investigated and valuated based on these methods. The results clearly show that proposed method has acceptable accuracy in know how valuation and can be applied to determine fair value of technology.

The purpose of this study is to determine the key sectors in the Iranian economy using the results of input-output tables for 1999. Considering the scarcity of resources in different countries, it is important to identify key sectors in different economies. Recognition of key sectors is one of the important subjects which help policy makers and economic planners to design appropriate policy. In the literature, there are several methods for determining key sectors both theoretically and empirically. One of the most novel and recent approaches is based on network theory. This method attributes different weights to both intermediate and final demand of sectors. In order to pinpoint those sectors whose positions are more significant in the economy, a definition of centrality measures is proposed from network theory. These complementary measures are total effects, meditative effects and immediate effects which considered as multilevel indicators. Total effects is the overall impact of the sector on the rest of the economy while immediate effects show the immediacy of the implementation of the total effects and finally the meditative effects indicate the role of certain sectors as transmission links of total effects produced by others.

Nowadays, following the development of science and knowledge, companies need to adjust the changing conditions of business environment and update telecommunication technology are being used in their activities. Therefore, the investment on this technology is steadily increasing. Moreover, evaluation performance has been a main concern for the companies. Because of the importance of telecommunication and the necessity of efficient evaluation in companies, this paper aims to use two scientific techniques to evaluate financial performance of the telecommunication in Qom, Isfahan and Yazd provinces. These techniques comprise Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Grey Theory. Finally, the results are compared between those provinces.

With the rise of per capita income and technological progress in recent decades, growth of energy consumption, particularly in housing sector, has significantly increased. It should be noted that housing sector is the most energy consuming sector in Iran. Due to the importance of decomposition of energy in housing sector, this study aims to examine the factors affecting energy consumption in residential sector using the data over the period 1984-2008. The Additive Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index decomposition technique is employed to decompose residential energy consumption as well as electricity energy consumption of household in order to identify role of energy productivity in household energy consumption. The variables included in the model comprise household revenue, energy productivity, population growth, and energy substitution effects. The findings show that household income is one of the most influential factors affects the residential energy consumption. Moreover, population growth and energy productivity have positively effects household energy consumption.

Hand-made carpet export decline in recent years and overtaking China and India from Iran. Therefore, many economists tend to think about the marketing problems of hand-made carpet. The current research aims to examine the role of internet marketing on competitive strength development in carpet industry using fuzzy TOPSIS technique. The results of this paper shows that “knowledge about rivals”, “using information from website visitors” and “receiving comments and suggestions” are important factors in internet marketing among various factors considered in this study.

Information and communications technology (ICT) industry plays a significant role in trade throughout the world. Iran’s export volume of ICT products is low compared to other countries. This article aims to identify and prioritize the ICT products target markets in order to increase export competitiveness in Iran. The ICT products and export's Indicators are considered using the data over the period 2003-2007. Firstly, 10 ICT products are selected according to their exports value and based on the revealed comparative advantage (RCA) index. Secondly, the export markets are identified over the world. TOPSIS technique is employed to identify the target markets. The results of this study show that most of the top prioritized markets for almost all 10 products belong to Asia, more specifically, Middle East, Central Asia and Caucasus regions.

With the increasing popularity of online shopping and internet user's growth, Iran is likely to be as a large market for e-Selling in the future. In the academic literature, e-Service quality has generally been recognized as a critical step to drive online business. Numerous studies have been devoted to e-Service quality and its evaluation. Marking researchers aim to use websites in order to understand online customers’ behavior. The objective of this paper is to examine the relation between satisfaction and quality in the customers of the Iranian insurance companies. An empirical model is specified based on the literature. This model includes six website quality factors. Structured equation modeling approach is employed to estimate the specified model. An online survey is conducted to collect the required information. The results indicate that the ease of use, data quality, confidence and the ease of e-Services effects on customer satisfaction.