دکتر الهام مهرپرور حسینی

Entering the global markets leads to economic development in domestic and foreign dimensions, and along with the globalization of the economic structure, it creates a completely competitive environment in which powerful and efficient economic companies will have a chance to survive. In this regard, if trade is far from its real potential, it will be a very important obstacle on the way to achieving the goal of economic growth and its subcategory goals. Hence, taking advantage of the opportunities created through trade agreements requires market research to identify the potential of target markets. This article aimed at investigating the determinants of the bilateral agricultural exports between Iran and the other official members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and then analyzing the agricultural export potential of Iran in these target markets through the Stochastic Frontier Gravity model in the period 2001-2018 by STATA 16 software. It should be mentioned that the export efficiency in the target market is defined as the ratio of a country's actual exports to its maximum export potential. Based on the results, the variables of economic and physical size of trading partners had positive and significant effects, while geographical distance had a negative effect on Iran's agricultural exports; in addition, trade freedom and economic difference played an effective role in increasing Iran's agricultural exports to the trading partners of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. In the period of 2016-2018, the efficiency of Iran's exports was found to be in the range of 11.9 to 86.4, indicating the lowest efficiency for Uzbekistan and the highest for Pakistan, which showed the significant difference in Iran's market performance in the member countries of this organization. As the signs of the model variables, it is suggested that exporters purpose the near target markets with higher per capita income and larger population. Also, considering the fluctuations in the trade efficiency of each of the target markets in different periods, it is suggested that maintaining trade stability and continuous presence in the target markets in order to brand Iranian products and build trust in business partners should be taken into account in regulating trade relationships and formulating export strategies through the capacity of Iran's membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

Nowadays, the membership of countries in trade agreements has opened a new space for the economic movement of different countries by facilitating trade through deregulation, dismantling tariff and support borders, increasing integration of national and regional markets, and access to different markets. But for all the benefits stated for agreements in facilitating trade conditions, the state of trade balance between countries in different economic sectors following membership in the agreements is not clear. Therefore, in this article, the effect of Iran's membership in the agreements, the Global System of Trade Preferences and the Organization of Economic Cooperation on her agricultural trade balance with 45 major trading partners using the Gravity model in the period 2001-2017 has been investigated. According to the results, Iran's membership in trade agreements has significantly diminished Iran's agricultural trade balance. Also, the variables of income and population of trading partners and common land border have positive and significant effect and variables of exchange rate, Iranian income, distance and global financial crisis have negative and significant effect on Iran's agricultural trade balance.

The support policies implemented by the government for wheat crop, which is a strategic crop in Iran's agricultural sector and has different distributional effects in the provinces of the country, are of great importance. In this study, while calculating the indicators of market price support (MPS), budget payments (BP) and producer support estimate (PSE) of wheat in the period of the Third to Fifth Economic, Social and Cultural Development Programs of Iran, their correlations with yield per unit area of dryland and irrigated wheat production were investigated and then, for planning and policy making, the provinces were classified into homogeneous clusters by K-means algorithm. According to the results, despite the implementation of the same policies across the country, the amount of market and budget support and total support to producers varies due to differences in climate and producers' behavior in input consumption, production technology, productivity, comparative advantages and distance from customs, so that wheat farmers in lower productivity provinces received more support per kg. Also, pricing policies did not supported producers in most years, but the PSE index showed that farmers of all clusters were supported in the three development programs by 882, 1549 and 1200 IR rials/kg, respectively. Contrary to BP, MPS and PSE indicators in most provinces had positive and significant relationships with irrigated wheat yields. Finally, considering the differences in clusters, it was suggested that for higher productivity clusters, various pricing and budget policy packages with higher support coverage levels should be designed in accordance with the optimal consumption pattern of top farmers' inputs; in addition, by changing the pattern of policies from price support to budget support, on the one hand, the price of products will be kept close to the global price and on the other hand, the direct intervention of the government in the product market will be avoided.

The agricultural trade balance, on the one hand, shows the ability to earn foreign currency in this sector and, on the other hand, indicates the degree of dependence on food security from imports. Therefore, study of effective components can lead to more effective policy choices in the future. Regarding economic sanctions against Iran, this study aimed at assessing the impact of international economic sanctions on the bilateral trade balance of Iran's agricultural sector with 45 major trading partners during the period 2001-2017. For this purpose, gravity model was used. The results indicated that international and EU-US sanctions had a negative effect on Iran's agricultural trade balance with its trading partners; in addition, this impact was insignificant for international sanctions and was statistically significant for EU-US sanctions. Therefore, it is suggested that Iran's dependence on the EU as the US most important trading partner be reduced to prevent a sharp decline in trade in future probabilistic sanctions.

The inefficiency of the agricultural product marketing system and the significant gap between producer prices and consumer payments are the major problems of the agricultural sector in most developing countries, which illustrates the need to achieve an optimal production situation and to reduce marketing margins by developing appropriate support policies for the agricultural sector. Therefore, in this article, the effect of consumer and producer protection policies on the marketing margin of chicken meat in Iran using the VECM model in the period 2002-2018 has been studied. According to the results, both indicators have a positive and significant effect on the marketing margin of chicken meat in the country, so that for one percent increase in consumer and producer support, the marketing margin of the product will increase by 23.75 and 19.92 units, respectively. In fact, not only these supports will not reduce the marketing margin of chicken meat in the country, but they will also increase the price margin and market inefficiency of this product. Accordingly, it is suggested that before implementing any policy, including pricing and budget support policies, the effects of these policies should be evaluated and with careful and purposeful planning, support should be designed in line with the goals of agricultural development programs.

Considering increasing competition in global markets, it is important to have a comprehensive understanding of target markets for market planning. One of the factors influencing international marketing strategies selection is assessment of the market structure in importing countries. Therefore, this study has pursued two main goals of determining the market structure of important saffron importing countries and investigating the effect of this variable on Iranian saffron to further the research literature on saffron export as one of the most important export products of the Iranian agricultural sector. To achieve these objectives, the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index has been used to calculate the market structure and the gravity model has been applied to determine this variable’s impact on Iran's exports over the period of 2001-2017. Market structure results showed that out of the 16 main countries importing saffron, no country had a fully competitive structure and there was a degree of monopoly in all markets. Also, the results of changes in the market structure of saffron importing countries during the period of 2001-2010 and 2011-2017 showed that the market structure of 7 countries Argentina, China, Germany, Japan, Spain, Sweden and the United Arab Emirates have become more monopolistic and 9 other countries have got more competitive structures. According to the results of the gravity model, the market structure of the importing countries has had a significant effect on Iranian saffron exports and the more competitive target markets have caused reduction of Iranian saffron exports. Hence, as saffron target markets become more competitive, it is suggested that exporters pay more attention to improving their competitive components in the markets, especially packaging. In accordance with world standards, packaging should be based on the quality of the product and provide complete information for customers.

Nowadays, institutions and institutional quality of countries have become one of the most important issues in the international trade literature which based on the empirical findings of various studies have been considered as one of the main trade barriers in countries and have led to a change in the country's trade model. Therefore, the purpose of this article is evaluation of the effect of Iran’s institutional quality and her major trading partners on Iranian agricultural products exports. To achieve this goal, Iran's agricultural exports to 45 major trading partners’ data were analyzed using the gravity model over the period of 2002-2014. The results showed variables of trade partners GDP, trade agreements and common border have had positive and significant effects and distance and economic similarity have had negative and significant effect on Iranian agricultural exports. Also, the institutional quality of Iran and her trading partners have had negative and positive effects on agricultural exports of Iran, respectively. In other words, the low institutional quality of Iran has been recognized as one of the barriers of Iran’s agricultural exports. Therefore, since improving the quality of domestic institutions through reducing risk and transaction costs can play a decisive role in increasing agricultural exports, it is suggested that more investment be made in improving the domestic institutions infrastructures in order to be benefited by the global trade environment.

Clustering is one of the most important operations in data mining and its results are useful for researchers and policy makers in various fields for analysis and planning. Since in recent years, the knowledge based economy has been developing with the support of knowledge-based companies in Iran, the analysis of the characteristics of these companies and their segmentation for effective planning provides an appropriate perspective for policy makers.
In this article, Iranian knowledge based companies of agriculture using 2017 data have been clustered based on the field of technology, the number of products and value of product sales. Three clustering methods, simple K-Means and K-Means in combination with hierarchical and ant colony algorithms by using MATLAB 2016a software were applied for clustering. Then, results of three algorithms have been compared and the best one for this data have been selected.
According to the results, the clustering using K-Means in combination with the ant colony algorithm, in comparison with the other two methods, shows a more balanced distribution of the firms among six clusters, and the average Silhouette width value of the 0.7 confirms the validity of this clustering. The highest number of companies and products are in first cluster and the lowest are in 4th and 5th clusters which have the highest average sales per company with 27293 and 5404 million Rials, respectively. The reason for the small number of members in these clusters is that few companies have a large number of knowledge-based products with high sale. In contrast, most companies have acquired a small market share with few number of products. The variety of products and sales of companies indicates the flexibility of the company in different markets, the size of the market and the ability to participate in market development.
Suggestion
Based on the results, it is suggested that similar support programs be designed for companies that are due to similar characteristics in a cluster in order to be effective and avoid losing budget. For knowledge based companies with low average sales that are in a cluster, market support programs and for companies with products diversification and high average incomes, export market development programs are recommended. Providing banking facilities to agricultural knowledge-based companies can not have the same model for every company, and It is necessary to determine the amount of facilities provided and the method of repayment based on the results of the clustering..
JEL Classification: C81, L2, M13, O31, Q16

Saffron is one of Iran’s exports of agricultural products that it could not keep and strengthen its position in the world market at recent years. Two events such as European Union trade sanctions against Iran (2006-2014) and global economic crisis (2007-2009) have directly and indirectly impacts on Iran’s economy and trade flows, respectively. According to process uncertainty about the abolition or continuation of the European Union trade sanctions and the possibility of a new global economic crisis, the aim of this paper is assessing the role of these two factors on Iran’s saffron exports. For this purpose, saffron exports to trading partners were analyzed by using gravity model and poisson pseudo maximum likelihood estimator in 2001-2014 periods. Based on the results, economic size, importer’s income and regional trade agreement have positive effect and distance and difference in GDP per capita have negative and significant impacts on saffron exports. The Results indicated that EU trade sanctions and global economic crisis have significantly negative effects on Iran’s saffron exports. In other words, due to Iran’s trading partners, global economic crisis have important role in saffron exports. Therefore, it is suggested that role of trade sanctions and economic crisis and their importance be considered to adopt long run strategic plan in order to strengthen Iran’s position in saffron world market and optimal basket of trading partners to be selected.

Given the importance of agriculture and energy consumption in this sector, this study was performed to evaluate the producer supports and energy intensity are looking for evaluation of past performance and solutions to improve future situation. For this purpose, in this study is used an approach of time series models in 1981-2012 to investigate the convergence of long-term between energy intensity and producer support policy. In this context, according to the data type is used the Johansen –Joselius cointegration method. The results show with the increase in government supports from agriculture producers, energy intensity declined.so that in the long term for increasing a billion Rials in supports, the energy intensity will decrease -2.66 *10-6 units. Based on these results, according to the targeted subsidy program, the Government pays its benefits to this sector in the fifth and sixth development programs with more aggressively pursue.

Raisin is one of the most important agricultural products in Iran. Iran after the Turkey and America countries is the third largest exporter of raisin in world. Using the indices of export advantage, import advantage, concentration ratios and the Herfindahl-Hirschman, have been analyzed to check the state trade and market structure of export and import of raisin product in the world during 2001-2011. Results indicate that the structure of export markets have been Monopoly Multilateral Closed in the period, but it has become more competitive in 2011 than in 2001. Import market structure has been with fluctuation, so that in some years it opens multilateral monopoly and has become more competitive. Based on the results obtained observed Iran's raisin has export advantage in this period. Another noteworthy is the negative growth of Iran's export advantage (-6.8%), while America and Chile have positive growth. Correlation results in Iran's export advantage to competitors show that there is no correlation between Iran and rival nations. The correlation results of export advantage of Iran and competitors with import advantage of the top superior importers showed that with enhancement of Canada's import advantage increases Iran's export advantage. It is noteworthy, raisins export advantage of Turkey and America has positive correlation with import advantage of Canada that is serious rivals for Iran in market development in Canada. Also, Iran with Russia and Belgium has negative correlation that indicative weaken the Iran competitive power is in the markets these countries. According to results of this study, it is suggested, Iran with use of agents marketing and appropriate policies of price and trade, his export share kept in target markets and follow to find new markets to development export share of Iran’s raisins in world.

Economic growth as an important indicator has always considered by policy makers. In presence of production inputs constraints، the most appropriate way of growing each sector is increase of productivity. In the agricultural sector due to several risks that farmers face as a result of activity in an open environment، productivity is also affected by these risks. Because of the importance of agriculture in the economy and food security، some strategies should be devised to reduce the risk that mechanization and infrastructure development for reducing the risk of cropping، expansion of insurance and crop diversification are taking place in this category. Hence، the present study has measured total factor productivity of agronomy and horticulture subsectors by using the Tornquist-Theil Index for years 1974-2007 and then by estimating a regression model، influence of the above factors on productivity has been evaluation. The average of total factor productivity growth of agronomy and horticulture subsectors was 0. 96 for this period. The results showed positive effect of crop diversification and insurance on productivity and also، it will be reduced by excessive use of tractor.

Formation of a strong agricultural sector requires the implementation of appropriate support policies that without a picture of the support structure is not available. In this study، producer، consumer، total and general services support estimate indices (PSE، CSE، TSE، GSSE) have been calculated for agricultural products using real and equilibrium exchange rates and effects of exchange rate misalignment has evaluated for 1981-2010 and forecasted from 2011 through 2015. Results revealed that the estimated level of agricultural support estimates were sensitive to exchange rate، pricing and budget policy of state. Return to continuous change in agricultural policy، these indices have many fluctuations. So that، during the 1981-88 because of over valuation of rial، PSE was 4/14 percent. While in 2005-2010، undervaluation of riyals induce producers to pay 3/10% from their income as a hidden tax that CSE sign was inverse of it. TSE of Agriculture and livestock sub-sections was possitive for most years، as horticulture subsector TSE index was negative. It is recomended، combining sectoral and exchange rate policies through increasing global competitiveness، support agriculture producers and consumers.

This study investigates Iran’s competitivness and their export competitors in importer countries of Iran’s Pistachio using indicators of competitive advantage (export advantage, trade advantage and competitiveness) and indicators of market structure (concentration ratios and the Herfindahl - Hirschman) for the period 1997-2011. Based on results, Iran in world market despite the more trade and export advantage in comparison with other rivals has faced negative growth. America also is the main rival of Iran's exports in target markets. Because of ten examined indicators in this study, eight indicators indicated increasing competition for America with Iran in importer markets of Iran's pistachio. Also, according to the negative correlation between America and Hong Kong's export advantage with Iran, whenever Iran lose their market share with whatever reason, export pistachio in these two countries is substituted. Analysis of the competitive behavior of top exporters in pistachios import markets shows that market activity of Iran’s competitors is less than Iran around the Persian Gulf that according to the minimal geographical distances of Iran with theirs is an appropriate opportunity for Market development of this product in these countries. Based on the results, it is suggested, in order to retrieve its trade power in pistachio market, Rival countries trade policies that have had negative correlation with Iran pistachio export advantage (particularly America) always be investigated in target markets. Also with identification of taste and health standards in the European market and improvement of economic relations with this region and abolition of trade sanctions increases your export share in the world market.

The current study attempted to investigate the Iranian dates trade model in front of export rivals and market structure using comparative advantage, import advantage, concentration ratio and Herfindahl-Hirschman indecies in Iran and world during 1992-2011. The results showed that, the world market structure and Iranian export market structure has become more competitive in this period and despite reduce advantage, therefore, Iran's dates has competitive strength in world market. Also results of correlation indicate, negative relationship of export advantage better exporters such as Pakistan, France and Germany with Iran that means to competition is these countries in the markets of common goal. It is worth noting, Assessment of correlation Iran export advantage and rivals with import advantage of better importers, represent is inimitable Iran in countries market, UAE, Russia, America, Australia and Hong Kong. Because none of Iran's export competitors aren’t aligned relationship with the countries mentioned. Also Iran's export advantage has positive and meaningful relationship with countries import advantage such as UAE, Russia, Australia and New Zealand. This relationship between Iran with Pakistan, UK, Germany, Malaysia and Sweden is negative that indicate loss probability these markets for Iran. So suggested, Iran using improve marketing conditions with suitable packaging of dates and Implementation appropriate supportive policies of productive(insurance coverage, granting of banking facilities and support of processing industry) and trade(incentives of export especially in the case of products packaged), their export share is maintain in the world market and with find new markets followed development of Iran's share in the world.