نشریه پژوهش های اقتصاد صنعتی
پیاپی 13 (پاییز 1399)

In the present study, the market structure of Iran’s banking industry is evaluated by using two measure of concentration and competition during the period of 2008- 2017. For this purpose, the k firm Concentration Ratio, the Herfindahl- Hirschman, the Hannah- Kay, the Hall-Tideman, the Comprehensive Industrial Concentration, and the Entropy are used to measure concentration. In addition the Panzar-Rosse statistic  is used to evaluate competition in Iran's banking sector. The various concentration indexes calculated based on total assets, total loans and total deposits of the 19 under study banks had an almost declining trend, which indicate that Iran’s banking industry has been moving towards competitive conditions. It is while, the estimated Panzar- Rosse statistic, as a competition index, had a fluctuating trend during the under study period and indicates the existence of a monopoly competition in the Iran's banking industry. A positive and strong correlation between different concentration indexes, along with a negative and weak correlation between different concentration indexes and the Panzar-Rosse statistic, besides the shortcomings of the structural approach to measure competition, show that the use of a non-structural approach, such as the Panzar-Rosse is more suitable for evaluating the Iran's Banking Industry.

The main purpose of this study was to measure markup and market power in Iran's Manufacturing sector based on Structural approach and   Stochastic Frontier method.  To meet these ends, while using the data of 130 four-digit industries for the period 1996-2015 and MLE method, the translog cost function were estimated. The resuls indicated that there were non-competitive conditions and oligopoly structure in Iran’s industrial market. Moreover, the results of mark-up estimation showed that P> MC in manufacturing industries and the mark up values in 14% and  86%   of industries were low and high, respectively . Overall, the research findings indicated that the dominant aspect in the Iranian industrial market was a monopoly structure and a high percentage of the markets were dominated by a limited number of market participants.

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the impacts of price, efficiency and income factors on energy intensity of Iran's thermal power plants. To meet this end, while using SVAR method and Blanchard-Quah approach, the impacts of power plants efficiency, revenue from power sales and the fuel price on energy intensity of thermal power plants was investigated for the e period 1986-2018. The results based on Impulse-Response analysis show that the response of energy intensity of power plants to an incremental impulse on efficiency is negative. This finding is consistent with the theoretical expectation of a reducing effect of efficiciency improvement on energy intensity. Moreover, energy intensity in power plants decreases following an incremental impulse in power plant revenues. This finding is in line with the theoretical expectation that in the long run, with increasing firm revenue, they tend to use energy saving technology which leads to reduce energy consumption. In addition, an impulse to energy prices (fuels prices), result in a decrease in energy intensity, which is in line with the theoretical expectation that with rising energy prices, there is an incentive to increase efficiency as well as decrease the energy intensity. Based on findings, it is recommended to improve the efficiency of power plants by converting gas power plants into combined cycle, using new technologies and removing fuel price subsidies.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of trade facilitation on bilateral trade in developing countries. Trade facilitation increases the attractiveness of investing in countries by improving the flow of trade by speeding up the process of declaration and clearance of goods, and helps reduce the cost of trade and improve competitiveness. In order to quantify the impact of trade facilitation on bilateral trade, we have used the cross-border trade index of countries. Our data includes a sample of panel data of 21749 bilateral relations between developing countries for time span of years 2006 to 2018, which is used to estimate the impact of trade facilitation along with other important variables such as GDP, population, common border, common language and distance between countries using a weighted least squares method.Our results show that trade facilitation, if implemented by both countries, has positive effects on bilateral trade of industrial goods. The results also showed that the tendency for bilateral trade is higher among developing countries with countries with higher GDP. The results showed that having a common border is more important than a common language in bilateral trade, and on the other hand, trade between countries with a higher geographical distance is less. Therefore, it can be said that trade policy focusing on neighboring countries has a higher priority than farther developing countries.

market competitiveness is one of the pillars of the global competitiveness index. The purpose of this study is to investigate the causal relationship between commodity market efficiency and economic success variables (economic growth and unemployment). For this purpose, panel vector error correction model (PVECM) and Wald test were used. The findings of this study confirmed the long-term causality from economic growth rate, unemployment rate, technology, trade and investment to commodity market efficiency. In addition, long-term causality from variables such as economic growth rate, unemployment rate, commodity market efficiency, technology and trade to investment was also confirmed. The results of this study also showed that with the exception of commodity market and investment efficiency, other variables such as economic growth, unemployment, technology and trade are not effective in adjusting short-term error to long-term equilibrium. In other words, only for commodity market and investment efficiency, coefficients of error correction were statistically negative and significant. Investment was identified variable as the most effective variable on commodity market efficiency and economic success.

The purpose of this article was to evaluate the relationship between the degree of concentration as a structural variable and advertising as a behavioral variable in Iran's  manufacturing sector. For this purpose, data related to ISIC 4-digit activities of Iran's manufacturing sector for the period  1375-1392  was used. While  using panel data and fixed effects method, the inverse U relationship between concentration and advertising in manufacturing markets was tested. The results indicated that there was an inverse U relationship between concentration and intensity of advertising in Iran's manufacturing industries. In addition, the findings of this study showed that size of market and profit margins had a negative significant effect on the intensity of advertising. During the period under review, the highest intensity of advertisements occurred in "soap and detergents and sanitary ware and cleaning and perfumes and cosmetics" ;  "motor vehicles" and  "home appliances" industries.