فصلنامه نظریه های کاربردی اقتصاد
پیاپی 2 (پاییز 1393)

Health status is one of the main prerequisites of social welfare systems. In other words، good health status is one of the main components of the welfare and development of any society. A prerequisite for effective actions in order to improve key indicators of health status is to know the determinants which have effects on health indicators from either inside or outside of the health system. Among the possible variables influence health status، income، health inputs (such as health expenditure، the number of physician، etc.)، and human (educational) capital are of the factors whose effects on health status are confirmed by a lot of studies. Accordingly، using a Bayesian Econometrics Approach and applying Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA)، this study has investigated the effects of the mentioned variables on under-5 mortality (as one of the most important indicators of health status) in 60 developing countries during the period 1978-2008. The results show that in the long-run، total literacy rate and income per capita have negative and significant effects on under-5 mortality rate in the mentioned countries. According to the results، it can be also said that health input indicators have some paradoxical effects on health status. Such that public health expenditure has significantly positive effect on under-5 mortality، while total health expenditure has an insignificant positive effect on children mortality. Some other factors، such as military expenditure (% of GDP)، age dependency rate، and industry value added (annual % growth) have substantial impacts on health status.

Energy demand prediction is very important to timely supply، market regulation، exports targeting and energy security. Different methods introduced to energy demand prediction، due to volatilities and non-linearity on energy demand، non-linear techniques have good results among them. Neural networks and genetic algorithm are well-known and most widely used techniques in this field that both of them have own strength and weaknesses. Imposing the specific form، necessity to the large samples and weakness on global optimum finding are important weaknesses on each method which these shortcomings can be fixed by combining them. In this study real coded genetic algorithm is used for neural network training as a hybrid algorithm (RGA- NN). After applying and comparing this technique with common techniques on energy demand prediction between 1967 -2011، the results confirm higher predictive performance of hybrid technique and the explanatory power of the used variables.

Given the importance of understanding inflation behavior for modeling، forecasting and policymaking، the main question is whether stationary tests for inflation rate in Iran are accurate and correct? An answer to this question depends on studying the inflation dynamics. Overlooking this fact might result in using wrong stationary tests and hence incorrect forecast about inflation movement. The purpose of this paper is to study inflation dynamics in Iran for the period 1991:2-2011:4. Most stationary tests in Iran are based on linear behavior of inflation rate and show that this variable is stationary. This means that the cost of fighting inflation is not high. This paper questions these results and examines the possibility of nonlinear behavior of inflation rate in Iran. The results suggest that inflation follows a nonlinear path and its movement is very well explained by an exponential smooth transition autoregressive (ESTAR) model. Given the nonlinearity of inflation rate in Iran، we apply the nonlinear unit root tests suggested by Kapetanios، Shin and Snell (KSS) to inflation rate. In contrast to most studies in Iran، we show that the inflation rate in Iran is a nonlinear non-stationary variable. This finding casts doubt on previous researches that considered inflation rate to be a stationary variable. Finally، it seems that shocks might have permanent effects on inflation rate and it would be very costly for monetary authorities to implement anti-inflationary policies in Iran.

This paper studies the degree of concentration and market power in the Iranian cement industry over the period 1380-1387. To that end، different concentration indices such as the reciprocal of the number of firms، –firm concentration ratio، Herfindahl – Hirschman، Hannah – key، Entropy، concentration curve، Gini، Lorenz curve، and variance of logarithms of firms’ size are used. While the results based on the relative measures of concentration show that the degree of concentration and market power in the Iranian cement industry has increased، the results using the absolute measures of concentration provide an opposite result. That is، despite an increase in the inequality of the firms in the cement industry، the concentration and market power has declined due to increase in the number of cement producing firms.

Simultaneous variations between world oil price and food prices leads to stimuli scientists to investigate the effect of raising oil price on food prices. The main purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of oil price volatilities on the food price index for the 1990-2006 periods in Iran. To achieve this goal، a vector auto-regression (VAR) model، impulse response function and a auto-regressive distributed lags (ARDL) model have used. The results of impulse response function show that oil price volatilities have no effect on food prices in Iran.. Moreover، results from ARDL model implies that there is no significant relationship between oil price and food prices in the short term and long term. This result may be due to subsidies paid by the government to energy section that prevent any price changes.

In most countries، the potentials of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are be used to attain macro-economic goals (such as high employment، etc.). In Iran and with aim of job creation، during last six years (since 2006) high percentage of banks credits is allocated to development of SME’s. In this research، by using the last five years (2006-2011) SME’s data، the impacts of the development and supporting policies of SMEs on developing of Iranian cooperation sector are examined. The findings shows that in two first years of this policy، the number of cooperation firms and job creations in cooperation sector has significantly increased in Iran such as in East Azerbaijan، but after this increase، because of forgetting of this policy، the statistics fall down.