فصلنامه تحقیقات اقتصادی
پیاپی 76 (آذر و دی 1385)

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of public ownership of oil resources on utilization of the resources in Iran. Using new institutional economic approach, in particular property right approach, the behavior of policy making institutions within Iran as well as the historical behavior of OPEC based on its member countries interests has been analyzed. Considering the estimated Iran oil supply curve and estimation of real value of oil, the paper concludes that public ownership of oil resources together with state rather than private sector membership of OPEC have resulted in over-utilization of this exhaustive resources in Iran as well as in the export of crude oil with prices far below its real value.

This study analyses one of the effects of the economic Globalization process, that is the inflow of foreign direct investment, on the employment of the sub-sectors of the service sector in Iran. For this purpose the impact of the gap between labor productivity in service sector of Iran and developed countries on the ratio of the skilled over unskilled labor (at the time of the multinational corporation entrance to the economy) is studied by using a panel data during the period of 1997-2004.The findings indicate that by entering the multinational corporations to the economy the active companies in various fields of service sector employ skilled labor which will lead to the greater labor productivity and consyuently the domestic companies can compete better with the foreign companies (spillover effect). The real-state, and small business activies have the first rank in emyloying the skilled labor and imyroving the ratio of skilled over unskilled labor.

Oil revenue is a critical factor in Iran’s economy and affects GDP to a great extent. Oil and Gas sector is not only an influential economic activity per se, but also an important source of finance for other sectors in Iran’s economy. Using a CGE model, this paper studies the impact of an increase in world oil price over GDP and employment. The CGE models have been widely used for policy analysis since 1970s. These models are superior in that they enable economists to analyze the impact of policy change or exogenous factors in a systemic framework which encompass all sectors in an economy and the whole world.The present paper first introduces a CGE model for Iran and subsequently studies the impact of an increase in world oil price on GDP and employment. It shows that an increase in oil prices will increase both GDP - as a whole - and all its components individually. Moreover, the increase in oil prices will improve total employment which is a result of employment increase in oil and gas, construction and services sectors.

In recent years, the theory of nonlinear systems in general and chaotic systems in particular has received a great deal of attentions in the economic research. Nonlinear systems show many behaviors which can be used to explain complex and deterministic features of economic systems. In this paper a new approach is proposed to fit a nonlinear dynamic function to a time series. First Lyapunov exponent of the time series is calculated. Then Lyapunov exponent is calculated from an assumed function. By comparing these two exponents, we are able to estimate the parameters of the function. Logistic map is used as the dynamic function and time series of price of oil is fitted by this function.

Concerning simultaneous leverage effect and volatility feedback in Tehran Stock Exchange, using daily total market index, we found that the leverage effect has been present in TSE. Regarding the volatility feedback, although unanticipated volatility has negative effect on the stock returns, however, contrary & volatility feed back theory the anticipated volatility has no direct effect on the stock returns.

Natural Gas is one of the energy resources with the continuous trading in the international markets and storage facilities are used in the time of shortage crisis. In this paper, considering the general conditions of natural gas markets, we provide an appropriate model to study the effect of gas storage on the natural gas price volatilities in the competitive and monopolistic markets. First, we formulate our model in a general structure and then modify it regarding the assumptions for competitive and monopolistic markets. For solution of the problem we use the stochastic dynamic programming model. The results of the numerical example solution in this model show that in both conditions, competitive and monopoly markets, our model is compatible with the philosophy of gas storage with the aim of smoothing the price and in a competitive market; it is stronger than a monopoly one.

In this article a kind of cost function named Leontief’s Generalized(GL) cost function is used to estimate short-run and long-run cost function and demand functions of production inputs for Iranian industries. The results indicate that any increase in price of inputs due to their low price elasticity causes a sustainable increase in production cost. Relatively speaking, in long-run capital is least elastic production input whereas energy is the most elastic. Long-run estimated indirect elasticity show that energy input can be substituted by each other significantly, whereas the substitution for the other inputs(labour and capital) is not significant. Comparison analysis on estimated path of investment and it’s real time trend indicate that sample industries have had shown a mean of %25 gap from their desired situation.

Iran’s oil and gas industry requires investments of US$ 15 billion in the short-term and over US$ 50 billion in the medium term. Iran tries to interest international oil companies (IOC) in investing in Iran’s oil and gas business by offering buyback contracts. Under a buyback contract an IOC invests and when production starts the field is handed over to the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) or one of its representatives. The IOC gets its costs and an agreed upon profit paid out of the oil and/or gas gross profits, assuming the field produces as agreed upon and the international energy prices are high enough. According to the Iranian government the buyback contract contains sufficient incentives for an IOC to invest in Iran. The IOCs, however, disagree. They claim that they solely bare the risks in a buyback contract, whereas the Iranian counterpart receives all windfall profits. Furthermore, the IOCs claim that the utilization of Iran’s oil and gas reserves will be sub-optimal if they are not involved in optimising long-term recovery. This paper formulates the buyback contracts as such one could compare with other contractual framework like production sharing. Also the paper offers optimization solutions for buyback contracts as such Iran could pay the minimum amount to the investor.