فصلنامه پژوهشهای اقتصادی (رشد و توسعه پایدار)
سال بیستم شماره 4 (زمستان 1399)

As higher education plays an exceptional role in training skilled and creative labor force, today, not only developed countries but even many developing countries devote a major share of their GDP to higher education, intending to expand both quantity and quality of their higher education to speed up the trend of growth and development. In this article, applying the data envelopment analysis (DEA) model, first the efficiency of Iranian higher education is investigated with respect to sustainable development and environmental considerations. Then, applying the autoregressive distributed lags (ARDL) model, the efficiency of Iranian higher education is evaluated with respect to realization of a continuous growth during 1990-2015. The results of the first model show an inefficient performance of Iranian higher education with respect to sustainable development. The second model indicates the following results: First, that the increase of productivity in higher education has a positive and significant influence on economic growth. Second, that investment in higher education has a positive impact on economic growth after two lags, showing that in higher education long run policies are more effective on economic growth than short run ones. Third, that the investment on higher education is less effective on economic growth than investment on public education.

Due to the fundamental differences in technology, factor abundance, labor productivity and economic capacities, developing countries need to attract FDI in order to achieve sustainable development goals. FDI transfers a variety of spillover effects including advanced technology, modern management and productive capital which properly help saving and promoting the environment. Indeed, FDI develops economic potentials of developing countries to expand export markets and to participate in the global economy, a fact that quantitative values lead to qualitative ones. Now, the question arises whether attracting any kind of FDI by emerging and developing economies leads to high-value employment opportunities, or preserves the environment. Do sustainable FDI flows secure sustainable development goals in developing countries? The basic hypothesis of this study is based on assessing the validity of this claim, subject to being empirically tested. This study investigates the effect of FDI on the sustainable development process in selected developing economies by using a panel data model over the period 2000-2018. The results indicate the significant effect of FDI and its spillover on sustainable development of selected countries. However, environmental pollution has statistically a negative and significant effect on sustainable development in these countries. The negative interaction effect of FDI and carbon dioxide emission on sustainable development indicates that if FDI triggers environmental pollution in host countries, it will hinders the path to sustainable development.

Sometimes, economic restructuring can cause the significant conservation of energy. However, any restructuring has specific costs, which may eliminate the benefits of reducing energy consumption. This article aims to measure the implicit exports of energy carriers’ subsidies. To this end, the consumption of energy carriers in Iran is briefly investigated. The implicit exports of energy subsidies are calculated using the input-output table in 2011 (prepared by Statistical Center of Iran) over the period 2008-2016. To do this, the net exports of energy content of goods and services are determined by the price gap approach based on the consumption basket at 2004 prices.  The results show that the production costs in the industrial sector has been influenced by welfare effects resulting from targeted subsidies and rising energy carriers’ prices, and a large portion of energy carrierschr('39') subsidies has been implicitly exported.  Indeed, energy subsidy as an exporting good has served as a source of income for the rich. Thus, one of the roles of energy subsidy in Iran is to provide foreign exchange, which makes it possible to import all kinds of goods and services to the country.

In recent decades, due to the importance of future values of macroeconomic variables, a range of predicting methods and models has been studied and evaluated. The main purpose of this paper is to compare different methods of predicting Iranchr('39')s economic growth using seasonal time series data during 1990-2017. To this end, economic growth is predicted using dynamic model averaging (DMA), dynamic model selection (DMS), BMA, BVAR, TVP and AR models in three prediction horizons (one, four and eight seasons). The models used in this study are categorized into three spectra, large-scale (including 112 variables in nine factor blocks), average-scale (including 10 variables) and univariate models. The results show that the predictions of DMS and DMA are more efficient than other traditional prediction.

One of the basic functions of input-output analysis is to identify the economic structure of regions and countries. This research seeks to identify the key sectors of Iranchr('39')s provinces and to compare them with national key sectors. The data is extracted from the national input-output table and regional accounts of the Statistical Center of Iran in 2011. The results show that based on the "total gross backward and forward linkages" criterion, there are 17 and 20 key sectors, respectively, with and without considering the "dispersion of the linkages", at national level. With same criterion, every province has at least one and two key sectors, respectively. However, some key sectors of provinces are not listed as national key sectors, and are not included in the central planning. On the contrary, a number of national key sectors are not categorized as key sectors in the provincial level. In addition, due to the larger usage of national resources in key sectors, the provinces with more common key sectors with national economy have higher GDP per capita. Thus, it seems due to inconsistency between some regional economic structure with national one, considering the provincial key sectors in national economic planning leads to optimal use of national resources through increasing the GDP per capita and decreasing the interregional disparities.

This study attempts to investigate the effect of government spending on regional growth in Iran. The relationship between government spending and economic growth is one of the well-known topics in economic literature. One of the problems of developing countries is the failure to achieve sustainable economic growth, which not only causes economic problems such as recession and unemployment, but also cultural, political and social problems. The government economic stabilization policies can be used to narrow the gap between the potential and realized product and to maintain the product near its potential level. One key issue in the field of regional planning is to study and understand the geographical inequalities in different dimensions.  In this paper, using the spatial econometric method, the relationship between government spending and regional growth is estimated by applying the regional data of Statistical Center of Iran during 2001-2017, and Excel and R software’s are used to perform the calculations. This study seeks to explain the growth of different regions using government spending, and to answer these questions:  Does government spending have a significant effect on growth in the regions? Do the regions converge in terms of economic growth over time? The results indicate the negative effect of government spending, population growth and human capital on regional growth in Iran. In addition, the statistical significance of spatial correlation coefficient indicates the positive diffusion effects of regional economic growth.

This paper investigates the role of financial development factors on how to affect oil price on oil and gas rents in Iran. In order to construct a multidimensional financial development index, the principal component analysis and weighted average of nine financial development indicators are used. The oil price is derived from the estimates of spot prices. Data is collected seasonally for Iran during the period of 1970Q1-2016Q4. In order to evaluate the how to affect oil price on oil and gas rents, a simultaneous equations system, the SUR estimator, and rolling regression method are used in two stages. In the first step, the ARDL rolling method is used to estimate the effect of oil price on oil and gas rents. Then, the effect of multidimensional financial development index on the oil price is determined by simultaneous equations system of oil and gas rents. The findings indicate the positive effect of multidimensional financial development index on how to influence oil price on oil rent and gas rents. It means that increasing multidimensional financial development index strengthens the effectiveness of oil price on oil and gas rents in Iran.

The distribution of resources and potentials is of crucial importance in the regional economy, social justice, poverty reduction and economic growth and development. Thus, fair distribution of income is one of the most important concerns of policymakers and economic researchers. However, since the income distribution index (Gini coefficient) is limited to range between zero and one, the use of standard linear models may not measure accurately the effect of other variables on it. Therefore, this study attempts to identify the variables affecting income distribution in the provinces of Iran over the period 2005-2016 using a Fractional Panel Probit Model. This approach is able to estimate the average partial effects of dependent variables with fractional data ranging from zero to one. The results show that the relationship between economic growth and income distribution does not support the Kuznets’s hypothesis. Among the control variables, per capita government expenditure, financial development and inflation have negative and significant effects on the Gini coefficient. According to the findings, it is suggested that the government should implement policies to promote financial development and to increase the efficiency of financial instruments, as well as to invest on education and health in order to benefit all strata of society.