Economic Policies

Following the independence of 1947, India adhered to a mixed model of nationalist and socialist policies in the early years, with protectionism and closed-borders attitude dominating its approach to foreign relations and global economy. In the aftermath of the economically precarious circumstances during the 1980s, and the subsequent economic crisis in the early 1990s, paradigmatic reforms, widely known as liberalization, were officially announced. However, considering Indian liberalization as a gradually evolving process, rather than a one-off project, this paper intends to take a political economy approach and employ historical analysis in order to scrutinize the pre-1991 contextual trajectory through which India underwent liberalizing its economy. The paper explicates the implemented economic approaches by studying the key primary sources, the Five-Year Plans in particular, and the relevant secondary sources. The authors propound the notion that India, since its independence till the early 1990s, appears caught in a cycle of oscillations between protective measures on one hand and attempts to move towards a liberalized economy on the other. The statist model of development that overwhelmingly disfavored interaction with the global economy at the outset was gradually replaced by a decentralized model that sought to open up the Indian economy to the world.

Improving the competitiveness of businesses through investment in industrial parks is one of the challenges that managers face for economic development. This study has been done with the aim of identifying, determining relationships and providing a structural model of investment to competitive advantage in industrial parks. The data have been analyzed in two parts, qualitative and quantitative. In the qualitative part, the variables of the model were extracted using the method of content analysis and coding and confirmed by the fuzzy Delphi method, and in the quantitative part, the hierarchical structure model was presented. The statistical population of the research is 25 experts who were selected by non-probability purposeful and snowball sampling and answered the pairwise comparison questionnaire. The findings of the qualitative section showed that the model has eight variables including "infrastructure investment", "motivational investment", "economical investment", "institutional investment", "environmental investment", "support investment", "Political investment" and "competitiveness". The findings of the quantitative section showed that the structural model has six levels, that "political investment" and "infrastructure investment" have the most influence in the model and are in the first priority. We conclude that in order to competitive advantage, managers should pay more attention to technical and informational infrastructure, as well as appropriate policies and providing regulations.

Purpose- After the beginning of a new round of sanctions against Iran in 2010-2011, many disorders were introduced in the Iranian economy including increased inflation and reduced purchasing power. It has significantly affected on the welfare of families and, hence. The study objective is to compare the effects of inflation on the costs of the social welfare and income among rural and urban families.Design/methodology/approach - The study adopts a descriptive-analytical methodology and urban and rural families in 31 provinces of Iran constitute its units of analysis. The data was comprised of family expenditure on food and non-food items in urban and rural areas during the period of 2011-2017 (at the height of sanctions) together with inflation. The panel data was analyzed using STATA 15 software package.Finding: The findings showed that inflation has increased income and, as a result, has increased costs and that a one percent increase in inflation has increased non-food costs as much as 0.43 and 0.35 and food costs as much as 0.18 and 0.22 for rural families. Similarly, by a one percent increase in inflation in urban areas of Iran, families’ non-food costs have increased by 0.20 and 0.16 and their food costs have increased by 0.11 and 0.24.Overall, inflation has led to a lower increase in the expenditure of rural families, so that a one percent increase in inflation has increased the costs for urban families as much as 0.32 and for rural families as much as 0.15. Therefore, the inflation caused by sanctions has increased the gap between urban and rural area and, as a result, increased macroeconomic instability. Considering the mutual effect of income distribution, unemployment, inflation and cost on each other, the policy of adjustment of income distribution and tax on income and wealth should be implemented in an exponential manner to reduce inequality. Also, in the face of inequality, in the early stages of development, politicians can control or reduce the upward trend in poverty and inequality by using the tools of transfer payments, social security insurances, unemployment insurances, etc.Originality/value: The results of this research can help organizations in charge of dealing with the effects of inflation in urban and rural areas to have a deeper insight into the existing conditions so that they can reduce the negative effects of inflation on life by using the solutions provided.