International Journal of Business and Development Studies

In 2010, the World Bank categorized countries in per capita gross domestic product in terms of purchasing power parity (at constant 1990 prices) in three categories: low, middle (lower and upper) and high income. If a country caught at least 28 years in lower middle income level and at least 14 years caught in upper middle-income level, then they are trapped in lower middle and upper middle income traps respectively. The growth of per capita GDP or economic growth, is a factor in avoiding middle income trap. We examined the effect of total factor productivity, human capital and age dependency ratios on GDP per capita growth and the avoidance of middle income trap during 1991 - 2014 for ten Islamic countries, using panel data and constant effects estimation. The findings indicate that human capital and then total factor productivity have positive and significant relationship with per-capita GDP and have the greatest impact on economic growth and the avoidance from middle income trap. If the ratio of age dependency is high, it has a positive and significant effect on economic growth and can keep the country in the middle income trap.

The main objective of this paper is to evaluate the structure of the Iranian banking system and to measure the market power factor based on the Boone approach. In this paper, we investigated the Iranian organized money market, including 18 banks operating in the period of 2008-2015. To calculate the marginal cost (MC), we used a Translog Stochastic Frontier Cost Function . Findings based on the Boone approach confirm that the size of efficient-based competition is low in Iranian organized money market. Based on the Boone index, this value in the Iranian banking market equals -0.022, and Bank Melli and Bank Mellat due to having high marginal cost elasticity with respect to market share, have a higher power in market transformations and distortion of market structure towards monopoly. In contrast, Karafarin Bank, Post Bank, Sarmayeh, and Sina Bank have produced the least distortion in market structure.

One policy making issue that needs to be addressed more effectively through an intergovernmental and participatory approach is entrepreneurship policy. Entrepreneurship is an area where interdependencies are very high, and the establishment of collaborative relationships such as networks is vital. Therefore, a network approach in the entrepreneurial policy-making process, which leads to the involvement of key stakeholders and entrepreneurs, will lead to higher legitimacy and effectiveness of policies. The purpose of the research is to validate and design a suitable model for policy networks in the field of entrepreneurship. Qualitative data analysis was conducted through theme analysis; and the quantitative data through the structural equations. After designing the conceptual model, the research questionnaire with dimensions was distributed among 240 experts and managers of the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare. Reliability of the questionnaire was verified using Cronbach's alpha and composite Reliability Coefficient (CR), and its validity was confirmed by Convergent Validity and Convergent Validity (AVE) methods. Finally, 24 components were identified in four branches of necessity, structural, behavioral and background. The findings show that, it is essential for the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare to focus on the role and importance of these entrepreneurs in order to develop the field of entrepreneurship, and to consider the network thinking in policy making as a substitute for hierarchical thinking.

Granular residual is created in the banking network when there are a few large banks with many small banks. In this case, the effect of the shocks on each bank not lost in total that can lead to macro-economic consequences. The transmission of monetary policy through change in bank facilities is one of the key mechanisms affecting monetary policies. The power of transmission of monetary policy mechanism is highly dependent on the specific characteristics of the banking network. Thus, the importance of granular residual and considering it on transmission of monetary policy in the banking network is important. The purpose of the present study is the effect of granular residual in Iran's banking network on the transmission of monetary policy through lending channel. Indeed, the granular residual was imported in this study as a independent variable that can effect on bank facilities and lending channel. Therefore, in the present study, the balance sheet data of 32 banks from the banking network for the period 2001-2014 were used.Themodel used in this study was estimated through the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM). The results showed that in the first, according to available theories in relation to the granular residual and conducting relevant empirical analyses, the presence of granular residual in Iran's banking network is confirmed. Also as expected, granular residual has a positive and significant effect on Iran's banking network facilities and the transmission of monetary policy through lending channel is weakened by increasing the granular impacts.

Water is a basic demand of sustainable development in most regions of the world. The non-uniform temporal and spatial distribution of water resources will lead to water shortage in arid and semi-arid areas. Pishin catchment is one of the most important catchments in South-East Iran. The basin had been faced with consecutive droughts in recent years. On the other hand, water resources development projects anticipated and necessary in this catchment. Hence, the need for a study to prioritize different scenarios and their effects on the catchment should be considered to overcome these dry periods. The main objective of the present study is to predict water development projects in the study area. Due to the multiplicity of projects and high cost of them, the concurrent execution priority implementation of these projects is considered as an important factor. Fuzzy multiple attribute decision making is a suitable method for comparison, selection and prioritization of the different options taking into account different criteria. Hence, in this study, the effects of the water development projects are predicted using Water Evaluation and Planning System (WEAP) model. The projects according to the economic criteria are evaluated and prioritized with Fuzzy TOPSIS. Six water development projects and criteria including five economic indexes are considered. Based on the results, according to the investigated indicators, increasing irrigation efficiency in agricultural sector and reducing evaporation from the reservoir scenarios have top priority.

The problem of optimal portfolio selection has attracted a great attention in the finance and optimization field. The future stock price should be predicted in an acceptable precision, and a suitable model and criterion for risk and the expected return of the stock portfolio should be proposed in order to solve the optimization problem. In this paper, two new criterions for the risk of stock price prediction has been presented, of which the first one is based on the interval predictions which vary with time and proportional to the uncertainty of stock price data, while the second one is a constant risk term that is proportional to the prediction error variances of the neural networks. A novel cost function has been presented to simultaneously consider the expected returns and risks. Genetic algorithm has been used to solve this optimization problem. Finally, 18 shares of the Tehran Stock Exchange have been considered to evaluate the performance of the proposed risk criterions. Two proposed risk criteria, by the conditional value at risk (CVaR) associated with the same stock. The problem of stock portfolio optimization has been solved for all three situations, and the PI-based risk criteria yielded a better return

Selecting approaches with appropriate accuracy and suitable speed for the purpose of making decision is one of the managers’ challenges. Also investing decision is one of the main decisions of managers and it can be referred to securities transaction in financial markets which is one of the investments approaches. When some assets and barriers of real world have been considered, optimization of stock basket can’t be solved easily, therefore, Meta-Heuristic approach is considered. In this regard, the main goal of this paper is to solve stock portfolio constrained optimization problem by using of Firefly Algorithm (FA) and Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (ICA). In order to do so, daily information of 25 accepted stocks in period of 2010-2016, in Tehran stock market have been used. Results show that Firefly Algorithm (FA) and Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (ICA) showed successful function in constrained optimization of stock portfolio and has acceptable accuracy in finding optimal answers in whole risk and returns levels. Also, the results of comparison of Cardinality Constrained Mean – Variance (CCMV) and Cardinality Constrained Mean – Semi -Variance (CCMSV) portfolios two using of Firefly Algorithm (FA) and Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (ICA) and considering to the findings of two criteria for assessing accuracy in stock basket optimization simultaneously show that Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (ICA) has high speed and accuracy for solving stock basket optimization and could have desirable interaction with real barriers of market. Moreover, there is high accuracy optimization of Cardinality Constrained Mean – Semi -Variance (CCMSV) compared to Cardinality Constrained Mean – Variance (CCMV).