Journal of Economic Modeling Research

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This paper examines the success of bilateral export potentials between Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) member countries in non-oil industries. Based on the Anderson and Van Win-coop gravity model, an empirical trade equation is derived and estimated using the bilateral trade information of all 10 ECO countries as well as those of their 40 main common trade partners in non-oil industries over 1992-2009. We employed a GMM instrumental variable model (ABB estimator) for the dynamic specification and a FEM estimator for the static version of the model. The results show that the formation of ECO has no significant impact in increasing trade among member countries. The results also show that ECO trade potentials in non-oil industries are not far beyond the actual level. Furthermore, export potentials are asymmetrically distributed among members. Turkey, Iran and Pakistan are the only countries representing positive export potentials towards the group. In particular, Turkish export potentials to Iran are 3.5 times larger than those of Iran to Turkey. That is, free trade among ECO nations may result in regional trade deficit for some members.

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  Despite the belief of many economic scholars, women have played a significant role in the industrialization process of communities. Unfortunately, although women have the necessary competence to accept society responsibilities, inappropriate behavior and discriminatory is imposed to them and this problem has caused the women's participation rate slower than the participation rate of men. As women's economic participation rate is the measure of progress and development in developed and developing nations, the issue of women's economic participation is of great importance. This study aims at estimating the women’s participation in Iranian economy using macroeconomic data and econometric method of panel data. Results show that women's economic participation rate in 28 provinces of Iran is affected by the main variable of wage rate and also by the control variables such as gross domestic production per capita, unemployment rate etc. Results also show that increasing the share of industrial and agricultural sectors in supplying new occupations has positive effect on women’s participation while an increase in the share of services sector in the supply of new occupations has a negative effect.

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  Parties and candidates in the election campaign try to raise the community to vote for them by offering a variety of social policies. However, the public health expenditures have been raised among the candidates as one of the most important tools to attract votes. Thus, this study uses panel data to investigate whether the components of electoral cycle have affected the growth of public health expenditures in both developed and developing countries over the period of 1994-2010. Using the related tests, two methods of static panel (random effects) and dynamic panel estimation were selected. According to the results, the presence of electoral cycles could not be rejected in both types of countries. Based on these results, politicians in every country increase the public health expenditures before the election in hopes of gaining a greater share of people's votes.

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  In this paper we revisited the recent study examines the determinants of Intra-Industry Trade (IIT) in the agriculture, industry and services sectors between Iran and European :::union:::, ECO, GCC and ASEAN countries in the period 1980-2009, using a dynamic panel data.

  This study uses country-specific characteristics as explanatory variables. The results indicate that IIT is a negative function of the difference in GDP per capita between Iran and trade partners. There is also a statistically significant relationship between IIT and the countries demand similarities. Results also reveal the importance of the size of economy and product diversification in intra industry trades. Finally the hypothesis that trade increases by a decrease in transportation costs can’t be rejected.

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Dominance of arid and semiarid climate in a vast area of Iran along with the water consumption growth necessitates a more sophisticated planning, a more efficient operation towards an optimal allocation and conservation of water resources in the country. In recent decades many countries, including Iran, have adopted increasing block tariffs for domestic water management. This policy is based on a progressive tariffs applied to control and manage the residential water consumption. In this paper, we developed a panel data model to investigate the impact of increasing block pricing on the residential water consumption during 2004-2008. The average and marginal price models of demand for residential water have been estimated to examine the effects of households’ income and the climate conditions on the residential water consumption. Results show that the increasing block pricing system has not efficiently controlled the residential water consumption in Iran.

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Providing, maintaining and improving health of infants as a vulnerable group has a special place in health care. Due to the importance of this index in the United Nations development indices, we compared the socioeconomic determinants of infant mortality rate in Iran and MENA countries during 1980- 2010. The aims of this comparison was to determine major causes of inequalities in infant mortality rate in the region and also to determine why this index is very high and very low in different countries..

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One of the empirical relationships that have been used to study the dynamics of labor market is the Beveridge curve -the scatter plot of unemployment rates versus vacancy rates- that is used to summarize the state of that market. The starting point for deriving the Beveridge curve is a matching function between unemployed workers and vacant jobs. In this research, provincial data are combined to estimate the Beveridge curve and the matching function of Iran. The matching function is estimated using provincial data for the period 1993-2008 and for estimating the Beveridge curve, provincial data for period 2005-2008 are used. The outcomes imply that the number of unemployed workers and vacant jobs has a positive and significant relationship with successful job matches. The elasticity of matching function for the unemployed and job vacancies equals 0.24 and 0.79, respectively. The Beveridge curve depicts a convex and negative relationship between unemployment rate and vacancy rate, although the relationship is not strong.

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This report investigates the dominant factors influencing the price gap and the symmetry principle’s evaluation between the crude oil’s price and gasoline. In this regard, the Brent’s crude oil price, gasoline price in six European countries and the fluctuations of the euro vs. US dollar’s exchange rate over the period of 1/1/1999 to 8/25/2011 in weekly intervals are studied. For this purpose, linear models and nonlinear models, such as artificial neural network and wavelet transformation, are implemented. The results indicate insignificant impact of the mentioned parameters in short period price gap both for linear and nonlinear simulations, but nonlinear modeling explicates 92% of long period fluctuations in price gap. According to linear/nonlinear models the symmetry principle is accepted for short period fluctuations in crude oil’s price, but not for long periods.

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One of the issues discussed in economy is the socioeconomic inequality in the society. Income mobility is another measure which indicates the degree of inequality of opportunity in a society. The extent of income mobility depends on socio-economic status of the individuals. Different socio-economic status leads to further inequality and increases inequality of opportunity. Such inequalities lead to the formation of Poverty which can be reproduced and transmitted from one cohort to the other, if not utilize the appropriate method. income mobility is measured as either conditional or absolute one. In Conditional mobility fixed effects are considered, however in absolute mobility it is not so. Fixed effect parameter that indicates the heterogeneity between individuals. According to the importance of the issue of poverty and the relation it has with inequality, this paper studies the conditional mobility in the economy of  Iran. In this study Household Survey Data collected by Iran Statistical Center from 1988 till 2011 is used. The method of nonlinear dynamic pseudo-panel has been used in order to measure income inequality dynamics. Nonlinear dynamics of income inequality for urban areas in Iran are estimated. This method enables us to track the performance of each cohort over time. The main results of this study indicate that the conditional income mobility is low and dine quality in the country has increased over time. Facing negative shocks, households cannot quickly improve their situation and return to the initial income, and at the same time, the market operation in itself cannot fix the problem. This means that the market provides more favorable conditions for people who have higher power and wealth. This leads the inequality to spread to the higher level.

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Transportation has been one of the human primary needs and it has been found a wider range with the economic and social development, today it’s considered as a symbol of civilization. It is one of the infrastructure sections in every society that, it not only influences on the development process but also will be changed during development. So, this study investigated the effect of transportation infrastructure on economic growth in some of Iran's provinces by using of panel data model and data from 2000 to 2011. The results indicate that transportation infrastructure as a variable had a positive effect on economic growth. Moreover, provinces that had more populations could help the promotion of the economic growth by changing the underlying structures such as the transportation capacity and the quality of the transportation systems.

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Changes infertility ratesasone of the factors affecting the demographic changes and its rolein the labor supply and there fore economic growth, as an important element ofsocio-economic development of every country is considered. So that the importance of demographic changes in each country in recent years has increased resulting aging population in general and specifically decreased fertility that increased concerns for the global economy and the majority of developing countries-including Iran. However, the range of empirical studies in incurred countries is very limited and in most studies, the surface shape of the subject has investigated in a simple line a reconometric model. Thus this study investigates the impact of fertility’s changes one conomic well-being in selected MENAcountries over the 1970-2010. We apply dynamic consumer optimization model that incorporates end ogenous fertility as well as end ogenous education and health investments offered by Prettner and et al. (2013). The estimation results of non-linear panel smooth transition regression model reports the negative effect of fertility and positive effect of revenue and population on effective labor force, which show that the quantity-quality trade off in population acts in favor of labor force and increases its quality and causes output growth and well-being. This issue is in ferable from positive effect of population on education and health-as delineator indices for well-being- in the countries under investigation.

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In recent years, regarding the export of Food & Beverage is important.in Iran and the economic researchers have been noted it. The main objective of this paper is to examine the impact of market concentration as a structural variable, advertising and R&D expenditures as behavioral variables and investment productivity on the Iranian food exports as a performance variable. For this purpose, the data for Iranian food firms has been extracted from the Statistical Center of Iran over the period of 2000-2007. Moreover, the empirical model of this study has been estimated by the Static Panel Data approach (SPD). The empirical results indicate that the market concentration, advertising and R&D intensity and investment productivity have positive and significant effects on the Iranian food exports and the impact of researching intensity (as measured by the ratio of research & development expenditures on sale) is more than other explanatory variables. Therefore, the market conduct is one of the main determinants of Iranian food exports. Also, due to the direct impact of R & D spending effect on exports, we can say that if managers and policy makers increasing the research and development activity in Iranian food industry sector can promote non-oil exports, especially exports of food products in Iran. Moreover, Facilitate and encourage producers to participate in exhibitions and international markets sales increased exports of goods and services can help.

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Fiscal decentralization that is considered a transfer of responsibilities that associated with accountability to sub – national governments, increases efficiency and providing better access to public goods in the Economy. According to the five-year development plans of Iran creating and allocating structure for provincial budgeting, fiscal decentralization generally is moving in the costs of its Provinces in order to give more responsibility to the provincial development projects. The aim of this study is an investigation of effect for partial fiscal decentralization on regional economic growth of Iran. Fiscal decentralization index is proportion of provincial's capital assets to government's capital assets, So this researches the effects of decentralization on economic growth in the framework of Solow's growth model. That the results based on data from 30 provinces between 2000 and 2007 on the panel data estimation, shows partial fiscal decentralization which has a non-linear relationship with the growth (convex shape) and partial fiscal decentralization Indicts the Optimal degree in growth of regional economy in Iran.

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Maximizing the social welfare considered as one of the main aspects the development process in society. This important is achieved through increased quality of life and welfare consumer the individual. In this context, quality of life and welfare consumer women as an important group of human resources in society, is affected by various factors. Despite women’s welfare patterns there is no precise information in this regard. Given the importance this issue, the present study using method Deaton and Paxson (1997) and life cycle model separation women heads of household expenditure as variable of welfare to three age, cohort and period effect. Therefore, in this paper, typical pattern is used pseudo-panel data. Pseudo-panel data using repeated cross-sectional data, Create generations of families during time. The feature of this method is, to trace the performance of each cohort over time. The results showed that lowest consumption is done by first generation. The age effect shows household consumption expenditure increased with increasing age. The time effect also shows Amount increase in consumption in the first decade (1991 to 2001) to more than the amount consumed in the second decade (2001 and 2011).

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Environmental quality is affected by many factors such as economic and political inequality. The main purpose of this article is to investigate the effects of income and political inequality on the environment quality in the selected countries. Using the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM), the effects of gini coefficient, democracy index and income per capita, energy consumption and human development index on environmental quality are estimated for 57 countries during the period 2000 to 2012. The results show that income inequality and Political inequality significantly had a negative effect on environment quality. While the energy consumption has the negative effect on the quality of environment, improvement in human development index and the income per capita have a positive effect on the quality of environment. This finding might has important policy implication for policymakers and authorities to achieve sustainable development in different countries.

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This paper considers spatial distribution of industrial activities and effective factors on such a distribution. Ellison and Glaeser’s spatial concentration index, has been used for measureing spatial distribution of industry. This index has been calculated by Ad-value variable for 30 provinces of Iran and for period of 2006-2013. So, The spatial panel data model has been used in order to stimate impact of effective factors on spatial concentration. Results of this paper, show that distribution of industrial activities between provinces is strongly unequal. Azarbaijan Sharghi, Markazi, Ghazvin and Tehran provinces by 0.03, 0.04, 0.05 and 0.06 for EG index, are the most industrial provinces respectively. Boushehr, Hormozgan and Ilam provinces with 0.68, 0.28 and 0.26 for EG index are the worst industrial provinces. Also, Results from estimating model show that spatial dependance of provinces is equal to 0.31. Increasing return to scale and transportation costs, each one by 0.07 and 0.001 for coefficient in model, are effective on spatial distribution of industry.