International Economic Studies

 Most debates about the role of tariff cuts on the level of employment and rate of wages in labor market have come out of well-known Hecscher €“ Ohlin and Stopler €“ Samuelson (HOS) theorems. Considering the fact that we have divided the workforce into skilled and unskilled labors the present paper assesses the impacts of tariff cuts on labor market indicators in Iran. To address these issues, a computable general equilibrium (CGE) modeling approach and social accounting matrix (SAM) of 2002 have been applied. Results show that general import tariff cuts along with the decreasing wage inequality increase the level of total employment, while tariff cuts in unskilled labor-intensive commodities such as those of agricultural commodities decrease the level of total employment, and consequently lead to an increase in wage inequality. However, under the effect of the tariff cuts in skilled labor-intensive commodities like food, apparel and textile, level of total employment increases and wage inequality decreases, respectively.      JEL Classification: F16 J21 J31

This paper aims to identify key challenges facing Iran and South Korea in their bilateral trade and investment relations. In particular, it is concerned with the policy implications which can be useful for policy makers and business people of both countries. For this purpose, we review and analyze the recent developments of the Iranian economy and bilateral trade and investment relations between Iran and Korea as well. Then, we discuss how the impact of the recent economic sanction imposed on Iran has affected the economy and the economic relations between Iran and Korea. Finally, this paper identifies the pattern of revealed comparative advantage (RCA) at the 2 digit sector level of the Harmonized System of classification. The analysis shows no similarities in the structure of comparative advantage for Iran and Korea. After identifying some key challenges, we discuss how both sides can overcome the obstacles to boost the mutually beneficial trade and investment.      JEL Classification: F11, F14    

 The importance of community's health followed by the consideration of endogenous growth models has led to an increase in health expenditure of countries to speed up economic growth and development. This has made the efficiency of health production function to an essential issue especially in developing countries. Based upon this, the present study with employing the stochastic frontier analysis method looks for identifying the main determinants such as economic ( children immunization and age dependency ratio ) , environmental ( the rule of law ) and social ( globalization ) conditions on technical inefficiency of health production function between member countries of Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in the period of 1998-2007. The empirical results show increasing the efficiency of health production through improvement in economic and environmental condition. But the increase in socialization globalization such as social factor has led to a decrease in technical efficiency that may be due to the lack of appropriate culture of using new technologies and modern social relations affected by the process of globalization in such countries.       JEL Classification: C12 C23 I12 I19    

 Based on the recent literature of heterogeneous firms, productive firms self select themselves into foreign markets. In this framework, there is a productivity rise prior to exporting. On the other words, different export performance across firms is linked to their heterogeneity.   The main purpose of the present paper is to examine the so-called hypothesis of heterogeneous firm in Iran. For this, we have used the last Iranian manufacturing industries data at 4 digit aggregation of ISIC classification during 2000-2010 and examined the hypothesis by using generalized method of moments. The obtained results show that productivity has a relationship with export in both short and long run. So, productivity enhances the competitiveness of the firms in international markets and then firms with high productivity enter global market and consequently export increases. Based on the results, the hypothesis is verified. Regarding to the importance of export in economic development, we suggest that it should be paid more attention to productivity in industrial development policies.         JEL Classification: F12, L1.

 The research on social networks and collaborative strategies has highlighted from the mid of 1980 which has contributed to the success and development of firms. The relationship and communication with trade partners in overseas help success of firms in entering to foreign markets and improve new partners and new markets abroad. Doing firm internationalization in foreign countries faces some barriers in external environment. These firms also face a lack of resources and capabilities and unprotected against environmental changes. Export managers through relational aspects of social network able to overcome the challenges and expand success in their internationalizing firms. The aims of this paper is to survey the correlation between internationalization orientation such as inward and outward internationalization and relational elements of social network such as trust, favor and friendship among Malaysian manufacturing firms exporting to the countries surrounding the Persian Gulf. The data was collected from 120 manufacturing firms in Malaysia by using a mail survey. The findings illustrate that two operations of internationalization means inward and outward internationalization orientation are positively and significantly correlated with all dimensions of relational elements means trust, favor and friendship. The results of this study can contribute to internationalizing firms and enhances relational marketing knowledge.        JEL Classification: F55, L10 

 The foreign exchange market (FX market) accounts for 40% of the total volume of the world€™s e-commerce by its own. Based on statistics, sometimes up to 90 per cent of the traders lose their total capital in this market just within six months to one year and leave this market. The probability of loss in the FX market can be estimated by probability theory. The present paper intends to demonstrate the loss in the FX market within the frameworks of some developed theoretical models using the data on the exchange rates for the currency pairs (EUR/ JPY, USD/ EUR) for the time interval of February-October in 2013.   According to the results of simulation of the loss in the FX market, a number of factors including the leverage level, the volatility of the exchange rate for the currency pair, inflation rate, spread, the number of the transactions and the number of sudden stop transactions are directly related to the percentage of the loser traders so that any decrease in the above-mentioned factors is accompanied by a decrease in the percentage of the losers in the FX market. Furthermore, based on experimental results, the loss probability in this market is as much as 60% for the lower leverage levels. This value amounts to 99% for the higher leverage levels.         JEL Classification: CO2, C60, C88, F31