فصلنامه برنامه ریزی و بودجه
پیاپی 135 (زمستان 1395)

Environmental problems have become a critical global issue, especially the global warming issue resulting from increased greenhouse gases over the past few decades. Nevertheless, due to the importance of foreign direct investment (FDI) for some countries, they use their environment as a comparative advantage to attract FDI. In this study, by using a theoretical model, we review the pollution haven hypothesis and environmental standards in the direct presence of FDI. In this model, a foreign firm investing in the first country, competes with a domestic firm in the second country for exporting homogeneous goods to the third country. The results show that the pollution haven hypothesis is rejected when all firms operate with the same technology. However, if the firms have different technologies and pollution rates, the host country of FDI may also be the host and the haven of pollution.

Institution is the collective action in control, liberation, and expansion of individual action; so that individuals are identified and realized through their participation in institutions. In the institutionalist perspective, the question of planning goes beyond the dichotomy of public-private sectors, and is transmuted from being an individual or interpersonal activity to an aspect of governance. Communicative action is the collective actions of the agents involved, that is coordinated through acts aiming to reach understanding and unanimity; hence, participants pursue their individual goals under the condition that they can harmonise their plans of action. Communicative planning approach is opposed to the imposition of top-down planning, and gives emphasis to the inclusion of all actors in the process of planning. This approach notices that communicative processes can help create consensus on critical social issues and foster the political will to bring about change. Exploring the content of the two mentioned approaches (institutionalism and communicative planning) indicates that despite the differences between these two schools of thought, both have distinct similarities; as they introduce ‘collective action’ as the basis for decision-making facing contradictory interests. This paper reviews and investigates the pertaining literature, and identifies the junctures of these approaches, with the emphasis on the role and position of collective action.

For the sustainable success of "globalization", it is important to investigate how expanding its aspects affect poverty. To determine the dimensions of this subject, in this study we hypothesize negative relationship between poverty and financial or trade openness, using the model by Dollar and Kraay. We employ a panel data method using data for the years 1960-2012 on 31 countries. We have also categorized countries into two parts including developed and developing ones and identified a significant difference in the impact of policies. Because of data limitations we only use the two variables “ratio of exports and imports to GDP”, and “foreign direct investment relative to GDP”, as the two criteria of various aspects of globalization. The results show that while the posit ive effect of trade openness in developing countries on increment of average income of the poor cannot be rejected; on the other side, effects of financial openness in developed and developing countries are different. So that it negatively, affects the income of the poor in the developing countries. This result suggests that to achieve sustainable success of financial and trade openness in developing countries, the latter should precede the former.

This paper aims to analyze factors affecting employment across nine economic sectors in the economy of Iran over the period of 1973-2011. Based on the results of dynamic models used for ARDL estimation of employment functions across all economic sectors, it is revealed that production variable has had a positive impact on employment and per capita capital, where as an index of relative cost of employing labor(w/r), bearing a negative impact on employment. Moreover, the impact of Total Factor Productivity, treated as an index of technology, on demand for labor has been negative and statistically meaningful for agriculture, industry, utilities (electricity, gas and water), telecommunications and other service sectors. As such, it is concluded that growth in production plays a significant role for growth in employment generation, but one should not overlook the negative impact of per capita capital and technological progress on labor employment. Estimations based on employment functions indicate that if average growth is achieved at 8% per annum, during the Sixth Development Plan, the average net annual job creation will be around 949,000 and the unemployment rate will fall to 9%.

From legal perspective, the boundary between public and private sectors and organizations is of great importance. The distinction between private and public sectors affects prominent issues like balancing the territories of market and government, determining the scopes of private and public sector functions, implementation of national accounts and Public Sector Accounting Standards, specifying laws governing the economic activities of public sector organizations and programming the privatization.
In this article legal definitions of public and private sectors and their organizations are criticized, and it is demonstrated that generalization of public accounting act’s definitions to other laws - like enforcement of general policies pertaining to principle 44 of the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran act (a law on privatization) - has resulted in legal complications, misunderstandings and some deviation in privatization and outsourcing processes. Thus, the other mentioned issues like balancing between market and government functions are not the subject of this paper.

In this study, by using manufacturing firm's cost functions and their demand for inputs, we attempt to find the relationship between production inputs and energy carriers during (2005-Ç2013). A dynamic model is implemented to derive the short and long-run elasticities of demand and substitution.
The results show that during the period 2005-Ç2013, energy and capital were complement for labor, and energy and labor were complement for capital. Also, labor and capital were substitute for energy. However, these relationships have been changed for the period 2011-2013, where all production inputs were substituted with low elasticity.
Furthermore, the results suggest that all energy carriers in manufacturing sector are substitute. Specifically, natural gas and gasoil have a strong potential for substitution. Moreover, the possibility of substituting natural gas and gasoil for electricity is less possible than substituting electricity with them. Also, comparing the short-run and long-run elasticities suggests that an increase in energy carrier's price decreases its demand from short-run to long-run.