An Investigation of the Economic Competitiveness Status of Cities of Iran

The present study aims to explore the competitiveness of Iranian cities based on economic indices. The research is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive - analytical in terms of method. The population included all central cities in the country in 2011. In order to analyze the competitiveness of the central cities, 20 economic indices were extracted based on data from Statistical Yearbook of year 2011. In this study, Shannon’s entropy model was used to measure the significance coefficient of each index, and the TOPSIS method was used to analyze the data. The results showed inequality in the enjoyment of economic competitiveness in central cities of Iran. The city of Tehran with the rate of 99% TOPSIS is in the first rank, Ahwaz and Isfahan ranked second and third, and Zahedan, Gorgan, Khoramabad, Ilam, Zanjan, Semnan, Qom, Sanandaj, Ardabil, Shahrekord, Birjand, Bojnoord, Karaj are ranked in the last. Given that in the present study, the indices of economic competitiveness were investigated at the center of city level, and evaluation of these indices at lower urban levels largely remained vague; thus, in this regard, it is proposed that measuring the economic competitiveness indices take place on the urban scale so that in addition to explaining inter-provincial differences, the inter-regional differences can be explained and revealed in small scales.