پژوهشنامه اقتصادی
پیاپی 41 (تابستان 1390)

Uncertainty results from economic and noneconomic government policies. This paper tries to identify the benefits or the costs of these uncertainties by analyzing the relationship between Inflation uncertainty and Investment in Iran in quarterly period of 1368:1-1387:2 (1989:1-2008:2). The results confirm a negative relationship between inflation uncertainty and investment.

The main idea of this study is examination of the Impact of Terms of Trade on Investment by Johnsen-Juselius cointegration technique for Economy of Iran in (1971-2006). For this aim, we specify investment function according the present value criteria and neoclassic theory. Our model includes gross domestic production, price index, interest rate and terms of trade. We use Johnsen-Juselius cointegration technique for estimation of this model. The result of econometric estimation has indicated a long run relationship among investment, gross domestic production, price index, interest rate and terms of trade. Our result showed GDP, price index and terms of trade have direct effect and interest rate has inverse effect on investment.

Inflation targeting as an monetary policy framework, requiring some prerequisites to warrant its prosperity. This research tends to investigate the applicability of inflation targeting to Iranian economy. Our findings on the existence of potential monetary policy instruments in order to control the inflation indicate that exchange rate can be used in short term, but the over-emphasis and over dependency on it, is not suggested in inflation targeting. Deposit rates are officially determined not based on economic conditions, and had negligible effect on economic variables, so using the deposit's rates as an instrument to control the inflation is impossible. The effects of money supply on the price level in the short- term is low, in the mid-term is moderate, and its maximum effect revealing in the long- term; thus the money supply cannot be used as a very effective instrument of monetary policy, for the proper time horizon in inflation targeting framework is approximately two years.

The relationship between industrial structure and productivity, particularly when the former influences the latter, is the traditional view that large firms in more concentrated industries have the resources to make R&D investments, bring about technical advances and ultimately raise industrial productivity. On the other hand, small firms in competitive industries may lack the resources to invest in innovation and make productivity gains. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between industrial structure and labour productivity for manufacturing firms in Iran during the years of the Second Development Plan. Concentration ratio, barriers to entry and minimum efficient scale are considered as measures of industrial structure and labour productivity wich is defined as the ratio of total output to total labour force. The data for empirical analysis consist of 12000 manufacturing firms, aggregated at 23, 60 and 135 of 2, 3 and 4-digit industries respectively. The results suggest that industry structure, measured by minimum efficient scale has a positive and significant effect in the labour productivity. This finding suggests that Iranian manufacturing plants are sub-optimal and it is possible to increase labour productivity by achieving minimum efficient scale.

In this research, the impacts of nominal shocks (money supply) on real wage in the industrial sector of Iran has been investigated for period 1981-2008. The model that we have used in this study is Vector Autoregressive Model.According to the results of Johansen test, a long run (cointegrated) relationship between variables in the industrial sector of Iran is confirmed. After estimation of the model and calculation of Impulse Response Function and analyzing dynamics in the model, we will be able to evaluate the response of real wage of industrial sector and the GDP to the shock of monetary policy variables. On the basis of the results,response of real wages is negative and GDP is positive, real and the wages of industrial sector are sticky.

This study examines the relationship between productivity growth and commerce sector growth during the period of 1981-2007 and examines empirically the causal link between productivity growth and commerce sector growth in Iran using unit root and co- integration techniques within a bi-variate vector auto– regressive (bVAR) and Vector Error Correction (VEC) framework. The results reveal a positive relationship between Productivity growth and commerce sector growth for Iran with the direction of causation running from productivity to commerce sector growth.

This paper studies the reciprocal effects of the two important socioeconomic issues, i.e. inequality of income- health through definition of two indices of health in 30 provinces of the country during 1982-2006. Evaluation of the model in the framework of the said analytical and consolidated data is stable in Pool System and fixed effects method. Although health depends on both factors of average income and income inequality, but based on the investigations, the society health is more influenced by income inequality. Therefore, we can see more health in the society with lower income inequality. The inter-provincial studies performed in various income groups shows that the income inequality is more effective on health of society in the provinces with high and low income. The general conclusions gained from social variables indicate that health situation has positive correlation with education or training; health care and number of insured and also health has strong negative correlation with income inequality and finally weak positive correlation with income average.

This paper analyzes the Granger causality between economic growth and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows in the three income groups of 112 developing countries over the period of 1980 to 2006. For this purpose, panel data techniques, including panel unit root, panel cointegration, and panel vector error correction model, have been applied. The research findings indicate that; firstly, there is a positive and statistically significant relationship between economic growth and FDI inflow in each of three groups. Secondly, these findings, also, provide strong evidence from gtanger causality between these two variables in all income groups.

This study has investigated the major barriers of Foreign Investment in Iran from the investor's viewpoints. In this study, we followed all of the foreign investors that recoursed to the investment organization in a period of three months. 150 questionnaires (including Doing Business Index) were sent via Email, fax and face to face interview, but only 35 questionnaires were returned. Data analysis has been done by use of inferential statistics and SPSS software. We found that: There is significant relationship between index of starting a business, dealing with licenses, employing workers, registering property, protecting Investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, closing a business and Foreign Investment. but there is no meaningful relationship, between index of bank getting credit and Foreign Investment.

Fluctuations of the housing prices during the past 15 years in the country and provincial level, has been remarkable. In this paper, factors affecting housing price level (long term) and its fluctuations (short term) in the provinces during the period 1370-1385(1991-2006) has been studied. For this purpose we used method of panel data. The analysis shows that in short-term, factors of the housing price fluctuations are: stock market price index, the general price level in the previous period, the price of land, construction costs, oil prices, the amount of private sector investment, household spending and interest rate on loan. Also in the long term, factors of the housing price fluctuations are: housing prices in the previous period, the number of households, stock market price index, household spending, the gold prices, land and housing prices and so on. Other results in this paper show that in determining housing prices and its variations the land price, the general price level of the previous priod, interest rate on loan and oil prices had the greatest effect, respectively.

This paper presents a new perspective on the Fisher hypothesis, which states a positive relationship between nominal stock returns and inflation. The new approach is based on a wavelet multiscaling method that decomposes a given time series on a scale-by-scale basis. The time series of inflation and stock return are decomposed into three wavelet details and one wavelet smooth. Empirical results show that there is a positive relationship between stock returns and inflation at 2- month period and at 8-month period, while a negative relationship is shown 4-month period. Also, no significant relationship was revealed in one month time horizon. This indicates that the nominal return results are supportive of the Fisher hypothesis for risky assets in d2 and s3 of the wavelet domain, while the stock returns do not play a role as an inflation hedge at one month and four month timescales.

The main objective of this paper is to study the accuracy of the relative valuation models, P/E and P/B. We chose 75 companies which are listed in Tehran Stock Exchange from 2001 until 2006. The accuracy of relative valuation models in prediction of initial public offering price depends on selection of comparable firms. In this paper, comparable firms were selected on the basis of industry type, return on equity (ROE), and total assets. In case of comparable firm selection, our findings prove that companies with the same ROE is more accurate than those in the same industry. The accuracy prediction in the companies with same total assets is in the last place in prediction accuracy. In general conclusion, the P/B ratio is more accurate than the P/B ratio.