نشریه اقتصاد و تجارت نوین
سال سیزدهم شماره 1 (پیاپی 38، بهار 1397)

Privatization aims to improve productivity and profitability of firms in different sectors of the economy. However, studies show that the impacts of privatization on productivity is mixed. The main objective of this study is examine the effects of privatization on the financial and economic performance of privatized companies in Iran. We consider two variables of labor productivity and profitability in privatized companies as the performance indicators. Findings from a Panel data model including 22 selected privatized companies during 2000 to 2010 show a positive and significant impact of privatization on labor productivity and profitability in privatized companies. Also, using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test we find a significant difference before and after privatization in the mentioned variables.

By the advent of ICT in recent decades and its continual growth, productivity and economic growth have increased rapidly specially in developed countries. However, the interaction between productivity growth and ICT investment is still subject of research at international level. This studyexamines the causality between the ICT investment and labor productivity growth using a panel data including 25 developed and 23 developing countries for the period2000- 2008. We use the Granger causality test and GMM method to estimate the model.The results demonstrate that bilateral causality between two variables exists. In other words, a growth in ICT investment leads to a growth in labor productivity and vice versa.

According to the latest theoretical and empirical literature of international trade, the market structure is among the most important industry-specific determinants of competitive advantages. The present paper examines the competitive advantage determinants of Iranian manufacturing industries using a panel data of industries at the 4-digit aggregation level for the period 2002-2010. We employ the constant market share (CMS) method to measure the competitive advantage and use the conventional variables to estimate the determinants of the competitive advantage. The results indicate that factors including the economies of scale, product differentiation, and government policy have positive and significant effects on the competitive advantage of Iranian manufacturing industries. Based on these results, it seems that monopolistic competition structure based on product differentiation and economies of scale as well as proper government protections, and emphasis on the competitive advantage instead of merely comparative advantage may improve the competitive advantage of Iranian manufacturing industries. In this framework, we suggest that more attention should be paid to intra industry trade in developing foreign trade.

For small and medium industrial enterprises (SME), operating in e-markets is considered as one of theirimportant objectives. However, the main question is whether these SMEs are ready to operate in these markets. The main objective of this study is to determine the level of e-business readiness of industrial SMEs in the west of Iran, and to assess the level of their ability to participate and operate in e-markets. Due to taking a number of evaluative approaches to assess the readiness level of the firms, the research offers a new integrated framework.Our dataobtained from a survey results including all 156 SMEs in the western provinces of Iran: Kermanshah, Hamadan and Kurdistan. The results show that the level of e-readiness of the selected firms is considerably less than the expected level (0.28). The findings also suggest that 0.60 of the firms are in the information readiness level and about the same percentage (0.57) in the brochure level. In other words, most of the firms are in the levels of information (PerServais) and brochure in e-business (Levy and Powel). The regression analysis illustrates that the technology infrastructure with an estimated coefficient of 0.87 and the factor of human resources with 0.62 have the highest influences on the e-readiness index.

Given the importance and role ofICTin enhancing people’s abilities and skills, studying the households expenditures on ICT products is important.The present paper identifies theICTrelated items in households’ budget by comparing different categories of products. We calculate the households’ spending on ICT indifferent income deciles for the rural and urban household in Iran for the period 2004-2015. The results show that there is a significant gap on level of ICT spendingand their share in household consumption basket between rural and urban families. In addition, there is a significant gap on level and share of ICT spendingbetween low-income and high-income deciles. It is also observed that after emergence of an inflationary era in mid-2000s and a stagnation period in theearly 2010s, the share of ICT spendingin family budgets has declined. Given the nature of ability-enhancement of ICT products and their role in income distribution and sustained growth and development, it is necessary for the policy-makers to pay attention to the gap between deciles and between rural and urban families and also to the recent decline of share of ICT spending.

The penetration of internet and new technologies during the last decade has significantly influenced many industries particularly the music industry. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the impact of information and communications technology on the income of industrial music. For this reason, we study the data on 20 countries obtained from the International Federation of Record Industry for the period 2004-2012. We first examine the statistical characteristic of the data by conducting the unit root, dependence, and heterogeneity of variance tests. We then estimate the econometric models specified using the fixed effects panel data for both macro and individual ICT indicators. Results show that music is a luxury good, and demand for music increases withhigher income. The impacts of both macro and individual ICT indicators on the income of music industry arealso negative and significant.

Exports of goods and services could be considered as an important factor that contribute to the productivity of different sectors of the economy. The effects of exports on firm’s productivity in similar stage of the production chain known as horizontal spillovers and the effects of exports on firm’s productivity in other sectors is called vertical spillovers. The vertical spillovers occur through forward and backward linkages between thesectors. Meanwhile, human capital in different sectors could enhance or intensify the spillover effects of exports. In this paper, we examine the impacts of exports onproductivity using a panel data of firms inthe Iranian manufacturing sector for the period 2001-2014. The productivity of factors of production is first estimated by applying the growth accounting method, and then productivity is treated as a function of horizontal and vertical spillovers of exports as well as human capital and imports. The findings show that exports cause positive horizontal spillover effects, however, its impactimproves withincreasing the level of human capital. Furthermore, our results illustrate that vertical spillover effects through forward linkages is negative and insignificant, but it is positive and significant through backward linkages.