GDP and Economic Well-being: New Evidence from Selected Developed Countries

GDP per capita often used in judgment about countries economic well-being, but any judgment based on it ignores some issues, therefore argues that a better index of economic well-being is IEWB (Index of Economic Well-being). Stevenson and Wolfers (2008), and Osberg and Sharpe (2001), mentioned that there is a positive relationship between GDP per capita and IEWB .in this paper we study a causal relationship between them; to this purpose we use the data of selected high income countries during 1980-2007.Finding shows that GDP is granger causal of IEWB except Norway that there aren’t any causal relationship between GDP and IEWB

Scientific Output and GDP: Evidence from Countries around the World

Scientific output is one of the important determinants of economic development in countries around the world. The extremely high scientific productivity of developing countries can be corrected by increased funding as investment on publications and also as a measure of scientific output. The purpose of the present paper is to examine the casual relationship between scientific output and GDP in 176 countries from both developing as well as developed countries. Our findings based on estimated regression models using a panel data for the periods 1996-2007 indicate that except in poor countries, there is a two-way and positive relationship between scientific output and GDP

Scientific Output: Evidence from Iran and the Middle East

Scientific output is one of the most important determinants of economic development in every country. The process of economic growth and social development is entirely related to the count of scientific output in different countries. The purpose of the present paper is to examine the scientific output in Iran and compare it to selected Middle Eastern countries. Our findings indicate that not only scientific output in Iran increased during 1996-2009 but this country presented the fastest-growing rate in the world in the last 5 years of this period. The best performance of Iran has been in the field of engineering and ranked first in Middle East. Also, in other fields this country performance has been by far better than the average of the region. The interesting point regarding the Iranian performance is that at the beginning of this period the scientific output of Iran has been much less than countries such as Egypt and even Saudi Arabia in the region. Iran ranked 22nd in 20 in the World and if maintains its current trend it will soon be among the first 10 countries in the World

Minimum Wage and Youth Employment The Case Study of Iran's Manufacturing Industries

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of minimum wage on the youth employment using panel technique in Iran’s manufacturing industries at the 4-digit aggregation level of ISIC classification, during 2001-2006. There is the controversy surrounding minimum wage because the effects of the introduction and increase of minimum wage may differ greatly depending on the labor market structure. In order to capture the effects which various un-observed labor supply and demand factors may have on the youth employment, The Kaitz Index (as the ratio of the minimum wage to the average wage) has been used in our analysis. The obtained results provide the small but positive effect of minimum wage on youth employment

Forecasting Government Size in Iran Using Artificial Neural Network

In this study, artificial neural network (ANN) for forecasting government size in Iran is applied. The purpose of the study is comparison various architectures, transfer functions and learning algorithms on the operation of network, for this purpose the annual data from 1971-2007 of selected variable are used. Variables are tax income, oil revenue, population, openness, government expenditure, GDP and GDP per capita; these variables are selected based on economic theories. Result shows that networks with various training algorithms and transfer functions have different results. Best architecture is a network with two hidden layer and twelve (12) neuron in hidden layers with hyperbolic tangent transfer function both in hidden and output layers with Quasi -Newton training algorithm. Base on findings in this study suggested in using neural network must be careful in selecting the architecture, transfer function and training algorithms

Corruption and FDI in OIC Countries

The purpose of the present paper is to investigate the impact of corruption on foreign direct investment revenues in OIC countries. To do so, we have concentrated on a sample of 16 countries for which the necessary data were available for the period 2002-2008. We have used panel regression analysis. Our empirical results support that openness and Gross domestic product (GDP) have positive impact and inflation and corruption have negative impact on FDI in OIC countries

Ethonomics & the History of Economic Thought

The purpose of this paper is to survey the relationship between economics and ethics in the history of economic thought. So the descriptive methodology of research is applied to find study and analyze the references which have been written about the matter. The conclusion shows that economics not only hasn’t been detached from ethics, but also has been the subdirectory of ethics in the beginning. In the other word economics grew out of moral philosophy and eventually became one of the moral sciences but these two sciences detached from each other as times go on, and this detachment is not part of the tradition of economics

Value Added Tax & Export: the Case of Selected Countries around the World

The purpose of the present paper is to compare the impact of implementing Value Added Tax on Export of goods and services in selected countries. In this paper, we used four different indices for export; export of goods and services, export of goods and services (BOP), export of goods and services (annual % growth), export of goods and services (% of GDP) to investigate the sensitivity to different definitions .To do so, study concentrated on a sample of 140 countries that have applied Value Added Tax in their tax system from 1990 to 2008. Findings of the study based on Mean Difference Statistical Test in a two threeyear periods before and after introduction of VAT. In general, the results show that, in different indices, the impact of VAT on export is positive. Therefore, it is suggested that other countries have not yet introduced the VAT to reform their tax system by introducing the VAT

Efficiency Wage Hypothesis: The Case Study of Iran's Manufacturing Industries

The purpose of this paper is to test the efficiency wage hypothesis for Iran's manufacturing industries at the 4-digit aggregation level of ISIC classification, during 2001-2006. According to the efficiency wage hypothesis, it is logical for some firms to pay wages that are above the market wage. In some cases the mere fact that workers are paid more can make them more productive. In other words, efficiency wages would increase productivity and there is positive relationship between wages and productivity. In this paper, panel data technique has employed to examine the mentioned hypothesis. However, the obtained results contradict the efficiency wage hypothesis for Iran's manufacturing industries. In other words, according to this result, higher wages lead to less efficient performance by the workers of Iran's manufacturing industries

Corruption and Inflation Tax in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region: Sensitivity to Definition of Corruption

Corruption usually harms all aspects of macroeconomic performances of all countries around the World especially the developing world. The purpose of the present paper is to investigate the impact of corruption on inflation tax in MENA countries. In a previous paper1, we used Corruption Perception Index (CPI) as a definition of corruption and applied Friedman, International Bank and Vito Tanzi definitions for inflation tax. We concluded that, there is a positive and significant relationship between corruption and inflation tax. In this paper, we used two different indices for corruption; Corruption Perception Index (CPI) and Control of Corruption Index (CCI) to investigate the sensitivity to different definition of corruption. To do so, we have concentrated on a sample of 17 developing countries from Middle East and North Africa countries for which the necessary data were available for the period 2003-2008. We have used two different indices for corruption; Corruption Perception Index (CPI) and Control of Corruption Index (CCI). Our findings based on panel data (we used unbalanced panel data because of missing data) regression models indicate that in general a positive relationship between corruption and inflation tax exists. In other words, the higher is the corruption the higher will be the inflation tax. Therefore, according to the results, governments have to try to use policies reducing corruption