International Economic Studies

The literature on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) has advanced several explanations of the links between financial market developments and FDI inflows across developing as well as developed countries. Empirical literature show that financial market development reduces informational frictions and improves resource allocation more efficiently. Also, financial systems are important for both productivity and development, where a better developed financial systems can receive more benefit from FDI and its inflows depend on condition of host country and their characteristics. The paper tries to examine and compare the relationship between foreign direct investment and local financial market development across oil exporting and importing emerging market economies by using VAR panel model during 1970-2014. The results show that there is a relationship between financial market development and FDI and financial development indicators are causality for FDI, particularly banking system indicators. Moreover, banking system is more important and efficient in oil importing countries than oil exporting countries to attract FDI from abroad. JEL Classification: F21, P45, O16, G1.

Stability analysis is one of the most important fields of study in the Islamic banking and finance industry. For measuring stability in Islamic banking, we introduced, for the first time, an Islamic banking stability index (IBS) during 2013 to 2016 which use all CAMEL factors and so seems to be more comprehensive than Z-score stability index which dominantly used in the existing literatures. To find the macroeconomic determinants of Islamic banking stability on IBS index, we have developed Generalized Additive Models (GAMs) using smoothing splines. GAMs provide a general framework for extending a standard linear model by allowing non-linear functions of each of the variables, while maintaining additivity. The results show that the proposed models have more predictability when compared by a linear counterpart. It is also concluded that Money Growth and Domestic Credit as a percentage of GDP in each year are inversely related to the Islamic banking stability of the next year. JEL Classification:

In today’s world, non-oil exports contribute significantly to national economics. Empirical studies on exports show that enterprises’ exports are affected by a variety of factors, including investment in R&D. However, exports of neighboring provinces are also influential. The present study investigates the effect of R&D intensity on the export performance of industrial enterprises in certain provinces of Iran during the years 2000-2015 using the spatial econometrics approach. The results of the study show that R&D intensity has a positive and significant effect on improving the export performance of industrial enterprises. Other explanatory variables such as the rate of economic growth, human capital, inflation, the size of industry and industrialization have also been examined, which prove to have a positive and significant effect on export performance of industrial enterprises. JEL classification: J24, F41, F14.

Does financial sector develop in line with its nature? Does part of financial development, which is in line with its nature, approve mainstream opinion in regard to finance-growth relationship? By considering financialization phenomenon within an ARDL-Bounds testing approach, this study re-examined the causal relationship between financial development and economic growth in the USA during the period 1961–2012. Using Principal Component Analysis (PCA), indicators of financial sector development (FD) and financialization (FIN) were created. After that, Granger causality test was applied using the ARDL-ECM methodology. According to the results: 1) a bilateral relationship between financial development and economic growth was observed; while financial development had negative and significant impact on economic growth, the influence of economic growth on financial development was not significant although it was positive; 2) financialization significantly affected financial development through efficiency channel. Obtained results can be used by policy makers in different countries, although the study is applied for the USA.

Does financial sector develop in line with its nature? Does part of financial development, which is in line with its nature, approve mainstream opinion in regard to finance-growth relationship? By considering financialization phenomenon within an ARDL-Bounds testing approach, this study re-examined the causal relationship between financial development and economic growth in the USA during the period 1961–2012. Using Principal Component Analysis (PCA), indicators of financial sector development (FD) and financialization (FIN) were created. After that, Granger causality test was applied using the ARDL-ECM methodology. According to the results: 1) a bilateral relationship between financial development and economic growth was observed; while financial development had negative and significant impact on economic growth, the influence of economic growth on financial development was not significant although it was positive; 2) financialization significantly affected financial development through efficiency channel. Obtained results can be used by policy makers in different countries, although the study is applied for the USA. JEL Classification: O11; O16; O51; G20.

Considering the fact that the main income source of the oil producing countries such as members of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Iran is earned by exporting oil, it is expected that an increase in oil price creates economic convergence. Nevertheless, by considering the low level of intra-regional trade and dissimilarity of their trade cycles, many experts point out the lack of economic convergences in these countries. Hence, the hypothesis considered in this research is that an increase in oil price would not have convergence in per capita income and will not lead to a steady state path. In order to test this hypothesis, we applied Solow-Swan model by using panel data method. The results showed that absolute and conditional convergences have been rejected although the effect of oil price increase on the economic growth is confirmed during the investigated period (1998-2008).  JEL Classification: F43, O47.