Institute for Management and Planning studies 2251-9092 15 2 2011 1 1 Different Approaches toward Transaction Costs and their Indications on Iran’s Business and Economy Environment 3 33 FA Mahmoud Motevasseli Ali Nikou-Nesbati Marjan Abniki This paper tries to indicate that new institutional economy has various origins and does not have an integrate wholeness. Lack of integraty in new institutional economy is reflected in its approach toward transaction costs there are two approaches toward transaction costs, one of which focuses on the firm and its relations and the other emphasizes on macro-infrastructures. Considering North’s approach to transaction costs and his emphasis on enforcing contracts, this paper takes contract enforcing costs as an independent variable in Djankov business environment. The paper uses cross-sectional Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) among 115 countries to indicate there is a significant relationship between contract enforcing costs and countries’ economic growth. While business environment models use many variables to explain economic growth, contract enforcing costs variable by itself explains many growth changes. Hence, it could be claimed that contract enforcing cost is the most notable variable among other variables affecting business environment. Eventually, considering the importance of contract enforcing, the paper surveys the status of this indictor in Iran and recommends some solutions to reduce it.

Institute for Management and Planning studies 2251-9092 15 2 2011 1 1 Ranking Economic Activities and Determining Investment Opportunities in Ardabil Province 35 62 FA Mohammad-Bagher Beheshti Samad Hekmati-Farid Study of empowerment and feasibility of different regions’ economy and its trend is an effective step for regional planning and resource allocation. This research tries to investigate different economic activities in order to determine investment opportunities in Ardabil Province. For ranking of economic activities a mix method of factor analysis and numeric taxonomy together with absolute advantage and comparative advantage were used. The research found that manufacture of grain mill products, sawmilling and planning of wood, manufacture of other non-metallic mineral products (in industry sector), production of rain-fed wheat, lentil, rain-fed barley and irrigated wheat (in farming sector), production of apple, pear, grape and walnut (in horticulture sector), production of sheep meat, local cattle meat, mixed cattle meat, and buffalo meat (in livestock breeding sector), and finally wholesale, retail, road transportation, personal residential housing services, and state secondary education (in service sector) were the priority of investment opportunities.

Institute for Management and Planning studies 2251-9092 15 2 2011 1 1 Industries Competitiveness Ranking according to Labor Flexibility Indicator 63 88 FA Mohsen Renani Shirin Arbabian Mohammad Mirza’ee Globalization has increased competition level among various industries and firms. Therefore any firm should inevitably improve its competition power in order to survive in global economy. Hence different firms try to increase the flexibility of their labor market to decrease their costs and become more flexible in the face of global market situations this, in turn, makes them more competitive. This study focuses on informal employment to assess how much the informal employment could be effective on labor flexibility and competitiveness of firms and as a result on the trend of Iran’s movement toward global economy. The results indicate that such an impact is positive in competitive activities and industries that have lower technology and such firms should use informal employment to improve competitiveness. Finally, dynamic competitive advantages indicator which is a balanced combination of competitiveness indicator and informal employment share is introduced for ranking the industries.

Institute for Management and Planning studies 2251-9092 15 2 2011 1 1 The Impact of Geographical Distance of Iran’s Provinces on Wages and Income Influence of Provinces on Each Other 89 112 FA Seyyed Ahamad-Reza Jalali Na’eeni Mohammad- Reza Gol-sefatan Modern economic geography is a new filed in economic studies highlighted by Krugman’s papers (1991 & 1992) increasingly welcomed by economists. Krugman in his papers, proposed a theoretical model that holds opening trade leads to increased wages in some geographical areas where major productions are industrial. Increased real wages in such areas leads to more labor employment while scale economy makes such a process perpetual. This process results in the concentration of industrial activities in such areas. This paper uses Hanson’s empirical model (1998 & 2005) to empirically test Krugman model with Iran’s data. The empirical findings indicate that wages in the industry sector in each province of Iran is influenced by the wages and income of the industry sector in other provinces. The extent of such an influence has negative relationship with the distance to other provinces the less the distance between provinces are, the more influence would exert a province’s wages and incomes in other provinces. In other words, the provinces with higher incomes and wages are located near each other. This statement is consistent with Krugman model indications. Accordingly nearness of any province to outstanding industrial centers is regarded a factor of the province’s industrialization and growth. Having tested Krugman model through Hanson method, the paper examines robustness of the model’s fitness by similar estimates during different intervals (sub-categories of the main interval). Annex II compares the model’s fitness in Iran with the similar estimates in other countries.

Institute for Management and Planning studies 2251-9092 15 2 2011 1 1 Quantitative Reassessment of the Financial Development–Growth Nexus: Application of ARDL and VDCM Models 113 139 FA Frozan Mohammadi Saeed Solaymani Mohammad Solaymani This study is a quantitative reassessment of the effects of financial development on Iran’s economic growth within the period of 1973-2007 using both Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) and Variance Decomposition (VDCM) approaches. The empirical results reveal that the financial development has a significant and positive impact on shot-run and long-run economic growth. The shot-run and long-run elasticity of the real GDP to financial development are very little, indicating its very low sensitivity to shot-run and long-run changes of financial development though its long-run elasticity is higher than the short-run one.

Institute for Management and Planning studies 2251-9092 15 2 2011 1 1 Identifying and Ranking the Factors Influencing Iran’s Software Exports Promotion 141 157 FA Maryam Toyserkani Zahra Farzi-zadeh This paper tries to identify and rank the factors influencing Iran’s software exports promotion. This study uses OVAL comprehensive software exports promotion factors model as well as gathered data analysis to rank the influencing factors in Iran from the standpoint of outstanding exporting companies. According to the findings of this study, within 2005-2006, the most remarkable factors influencing software exports promotion were respectively: effective communications through agencies and offices abroad, appropriate infrastructures, income per-capita, employing skilled software experts, precise governmental policies, human resources development, and investment in software industry

Institute for Management and Planning studies 2251-9092 15 2 2011 1 1 Entrepreneurship Culture Development Factors and Solutions: Mazandaran Provincial Payam Nour University Case Study 159 182 FA Reza Veisi Parisa Karim-zadeh Entrepreneurship is deemed one of the issues playing key role in organizational culture and human resources productivity. In turn, developing entrepreneurship culture requires a series of factors and elements. Accordingly, this paper discusses issues affecting entrepreneurship culture development in Mazandaran Provincial Payam Nour University with the aim of identifying and classifying the extent of effects of such factors as well as providing some solutions for it. This study is a non-empirical survey in nature and could be classified among exploratory field researches conducted by using questionnaires. The statistical population of the research encompasses Payam Nour University staff experts (400 persons). The sample volume was consisted of 200 persons through Cochran’s formula the sample was distributed among Mazandaran Provincial Payam Nour University staff experts through the use of simple stratified and random sampling. Descriptive and inferential statistics such as exploratory factor analysis test and Friedman nonparametric test were used in order to analyze the research results. Having used exploratory factor analysis test, a number of 29 factors affecting entrepreneurship culture development were classified in three factors, i.e. managerial, human-psychological, and strategic orientation factors. Then, Friedman nonparametric test was used to prioritize the extent of these three factors affecting entrepreneurship culture development and it ranked human psychological, managerial and strategic orientation factors (respectively 5.9, 3.7, and 2.1) as effective on entrepreneurship culture development in Mazandaran Provincial Payam Nour University