مجله بررسی مسائل اقتصاد ایران
سال چهارم شماره 2 (پیاپی 8، پاییز و زمستان 1396)

This article aims to identify the factors that lead to economic corruption in public tenders. Studying the theoretical literature, the major and minor elements of economic corruption in public tenders were identified. Also, using Delphi method, these factors were confirmed by experts. Four major factors have been identified: rent seeking structure of public tenders, politicizing process of public trends, bureaucratic authority, and weak supervisory mechanisms. In order to determine the significance of each of these factors the multi-criteria decision making including hierarchical analysis (AHP) and TOPSIS were used. It was found that the weak supervisory mechanism played the major role among the four of them. But at end it was clear that the coordination of the four of them resulted in corrupted public tenders.

Globalization is an integrative force that unifies the global society. On the one hand, this integrated form is an economic phenomenon which includes capital flow, transfer of technology and trade of goods and services. On the other hand, it has a non-economic nature that includes development of ideas, norms and values. From a genealogical point of view, globalization has its roots in liberalism. Facing other rivals or other intellectual partners and varied geographical regions, it has different effects and consequences. If the period of cold war and bipolar system was of contradicted ideologies, nowadays with the ruling of liberal thought and institutions, it is hard to talk about other alternatives. Meanwhile, the world of Islam and specially our country, Iran, is encountering different forms of the dominant atmosphere affected by a liberal economic globalization. It is using strategies such as countering, adoption, denying or nativization of globalization. The main question is that can we speak of Islamic models of growth and development in respect of privilege of globalization in different aspects (such as economics), its promotion by capitalistic institutions on the one hand, and countries' practical experiment in adoption and exclusion of its principles, on the other hand? We should also note that there are basic differences between Islam and liberalism in epistemological and ontological dimensions.

In recent decades, several books and articles have been written in the field of “economics and ethics” with different approaches; On the one hand, economists that advocate a more ethical economics have tried to bring ethics and ethical values to the economics by explaining the shortcomings of "economics without moral considerations" And on the other hand, another group of economists has not accepted the objections to the orthodox economics. A comprehensive study of the reasons for both groups makes it clear that the combination of ethics with the normative economics as well as the impact of moral values on economy is inevitable and even necessary but the reasons for intervention of the ethics in the positive economics are not convincing.

The economic valuation of goods and services with no given market value is related to economics. The studies covering the valuation of these goods, especially the natural resources show that different valuation methods reveal inconsistencies in the valuation processes. In order to have a better understanding of the subject and through an institutional point of view the present article tries to assess the process of economic valuation through the presence of beneficiaries and their background for the realization of effective factors involved in this process. Based on this point of view, the official institutions such as laws and the related instructions of environment and the process of valuation and non-official institutions including scientific and political paradigms and the ideology of the beneficiaries affects their choice of the valuation process. In addition to these institutions, the characteristics of the economic instrument are also important determinants of choices of beneficiaries in the valuation process.

Nowadays, there is an increasing tendency towards decentralization around the world. Because, it is supposed that decentralization policy is one of the ways most countries adopt to improve public sector performance. It is expected that, the policy leads to better social welfare, economic efficiency and ultimately economic growth. Because the local governments are closer to people living in the region and better recognize their people's tastes. This paper is a basic research and uses an analytical method. Using a mathematical framework, the paper explains the central and local governments' recognition of people's tastes. So, comparing their recognition function, the paper will consider the devolution of power to local governments. Thus, on the basis of capability and effectiveness of local governments, the paper tries to analyze the suitability of the devolution of power to local governments. The results show that the level of democracy, skilled human resources and information about people's needs, among other factors, play a crucial role in the recognition of priorities.

This paper aims at presenting a comparative approach to the concept and nature of agencies within neo-classical and new institutionalist theoretical frameworks. In this approach, asymmetrical information provides the grounds for transaction costs leading to a change in the nature of the agency from being the production function in the neo-classical approach to becoming agency as an organization in the new institutionalism. Based on this, agency as an organization faces two groups of transaction and exchange costs affected by institutional matrix. Then, the agency’s transaction and exchange costs are identified by analyzing the structure of the cost in a sample agency in Iran’s Tire Industry according to new institutionalism. At the end, it is shown how the government, technological institutes and mental structures as institutional matrix can affect the agency’s transaction and exchange costs and determine the level of the price of the tire product as a result.