فصلنامه پژوهشهای اقتصادی (رشد و توسعه پایدار)
سال نوزدهم شماره 2 (تابستان 1398)

According to empirical studies, the imbalanced and even contradictory changes have happened during the industrialization process at some industrial areas and structures, and both national and provincial levels in Iran. This paper analyzes the trend of inclusive and sustainable industrial development and its determinants during the period 1974-2015 by Johansen-Juselius co-integration method. The findings show that industrial growth has experienced a highly fluctuating trend. Inclusive industrial development has experienced a relatively stable trend. However, sustainability of industrial development has recorded a downward trend during the period under study. The results of co-integration analysis indicate positive and significant effects of capital, exchange rate, technology, and research and development expenditure on industrial growth. The inclusiveness of industrial development despite is positively influenced by industrial employment, investment and social capital. Nevertheless, it is negatively affected by technology and research and development expenditure. Sustainability of industrial development is also a positive function of industrial employment, social capital and government investment on the environment sector. According to the findings, it is suggested that the more credits should be allocated for protecting environment. In addition, in order to enhance social capital, it is recommended that the participation rate of various social classes should be increased.

Improving the distribution of income is one of the main goals of governments in economic policy, regardless of the orientation of different systems. The purpose of this study is to investigate the distributive effects of monetary policy on income distribution in urban and rural areas of Iran. In this regard, the values of macroeconomic variables during the period of 1959-2014 and the household budget data over the period of 1997-2014 were used. The monetary policy was considered in three scenarios, including the increase in facilities granted to the private sector, the decrease in the reserve requirement ratio and decrease in the excess reserves ratio. The results showed that expansionary monetary policy improves the distribution of income in the short run, but in the long run it worsens the distribution of income due to its inflationary effect. An increase in facilities granted in the short term reduces the Gini coefficient in urban and rural areas, and whole country. However, it increases the Gini coefficients in all three sections in the long run. Reducing the reserve requirement ratio in the short run reduces Gini coefficients, but it does not change the whole Gini coefficient in the long run, but it increases the Gini coefficients in urban and rural areas. The effect of reducing excess reserves ratio is similar to that of reducing reserve requirement ratio.

Payment systems are the main components of the financial system of each country, which play effective roles in the rapid, efficient and safe transfer of funds among markets and various agents in the financial system, as well as in improving the efficiency of the financial system. These systems facilitate the carrying and using cash in the form of a payment card, and reduce the risks of theft or loss of cash. They reduce the risks of illness transmission compared to the exchange of notes, and allocate the income accrued to the deposit account as a bank profit. In addition, such systems lower the transaction costs and bank charges, and speed up the financial exchanges. Any electronic payment is possible from the platform of these systems. The identification of the effects of electronic payments on different economic and financial sectors is of great importance. This paper aims to investigate the impact of card payments, as a part of electronic payments, on the financial development among the Iranian provinces by using panel data approach. The estimations by Panel Least Squares method indicated that during the period of 2007-2016, the number of points of sales (POSs), the number of automatic teller machines (ATMs), and sum of number of POSs and ATMs as indicators of card payments had positive and significant effects on the ratio of facilities to deposits as an indicator of financial development.

Due to the importance of limited energy resources in the world, researchers and policy makers pay more attention to energy intensity. The purpose of the paper is to study the effect of structural break on factors influencing energy intensity in Iran during the period of 1979-2013. The Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FMOLS) method was used to estimate co-integrating relationships among variables under study. The results showed that energy price and foreign direct investment had negative effects, and share of industrial value added had a significant positive effect on energy intensity. Then structural break was included in the model as a dummy variable. Findings indicate that 1987’s structural break has reduced the impact of energy price and industrial value added, which points to a decrease in the price elasticity of energy intensity and an increase in productivity of the industrial sector after structural break. However, such break had no significant effect on the relationship between direct foreign investment and energy intensity.

This study examines the effects of ownership, competitiveness, firm size and research and development (R&D) expenditure on exports of Iran's vehicles manufacturing industries. A panel data model is set up using 4-digit codes of the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC) related to vehicles manufacturing industries in Iran over the period 2005-2013. The dynamic panel data technique and two-stage generalized method of moments (Arellano and Band method) are used to estimate the econometric model. The estimation results indicate positive and significant effects of private ownership, R&D expenditure and competitiveness on export intensity in Iran's vehicles manufacturing industries. According to the positive effect of the private ownership on exports, facilitating the entrance of the other private firms aiming at producing and exporting of vehicles’ products can be a considerable step for promoting foreign trade in Iran. In addition, findings show that real exchange rate has no significant effect on export intensity among mentioned industries. Moreover, higher tariff rates on imports of vehicles in Iran and higher relative prices of vehicles compared to world prices have limited the potential of exporting the products of such industries.

Economic security is one of the most important aspects of national security. It is a basic pillar of the economies for achieving economic development and improving social welfare, too. The demographic changes may widely affect the development and trend of target variables of the economy. The identification of the effects of demographic changes on economic security can help policy-making and planning of economic development. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of age structure of the population on economic security in Iran during the period 1981-2016. In this regard, the economic security index (ESI) is firstly estimated using fuzzy logic. The findings indicate the instability of this index. Then, the impact of demographic model of Iran along with other variables affecting Iran's economic security is evaluated using generalized method of moments (GMM). The results show that age structure of the population has a negative and significant effect on Iran's economic security. Population growth, capital stock, financial development, trade openness, and saving rates have positive and significant impacts on the ESI. However, the inflation rate has no significant effect on the ESI. Iran’s population is rapidly aging, and if the current trend continues, the limited economic resources should be assigned to meet the needs of the elderly instead of investing in productive sectors. Therefore, there is a need for planning to tackle this problem.

The appropriate theoretical explanation and the empirical prediction of adopting ethical behaviors by individuals are among the challenges in the economic literature. The most important theory in predicting the empirical behavior of individuals, i.e. the theory of expected utility, lacks unanimity towards dealing with ethical behaviors and explaining the mechanism of the emergence of such behaviors in everyday life. However, previous studies also had less achievement in predicting the variability of the ethical behaviors of individuals in the proposed models. In this study, a new behavioral model is presented to complete the previous models by highlighting the role of economic variables and incorporating the individuals’ self-interests in ethical decisions. In order to measure the predictive power of the proposed model in explaining the ethical behavior of time volunteering, data from nearly 25,000 people of twenty-five countries around the world is evaluated. The results of statistical analysis indicate the significance of the effects of economic variables on time volunteering while getting the more desirable explanation of the variability of ethical behaviors compared to the previous models. In addition, the findings show that economic variables have more explanatory power than other variables in sustainable ethical behavior model while the cultural and personality variables have more explanatory power than other variables in unsustainable ethical behavior model. These results, with emphasis on the economic aspects of adopting ethical behaviors, can provide a new horizon for further understanding and the new context for the emergence of such behaviors.