The Economic Valuation of Recreation Services of Environment Resources, Case: Anzali Wetland

The determination of economic value of environment resources has become significantly important in the light of increasing pollution and environmental deterioration that is getting momentum. On this ground, the necessity of gauging the cost of pollution, preparing the so called "green national accounts", introducing new taxes and levies to contain and prevent further destruction of the environment, has received especial attentions. The very objective of this paper is to determine the recreation value of Anzali Wetland for which the travel cost approach based on household production function has been employed. Generally two approaches are employed in regard to wetland recreation valuation. One is based on demand for travel which takes into account the willingness of individuals to pay for travel expenses. And the second one is based on recreation production function and marginal cost of each travel, taking into account the shadow price of recreation. The present paper has utilized the second approach for the valuation of wetland recreation services introduced by Doctor Pajooyan.J (1987). This approach has benefited from Gary Beaker household production function. The result of this study indicates that  distance and travel expenses have significant effects on the provision of recreation services.  Under competitive condition, marginal cost of recreation is estimated to amount to Rls, 1100000 per day which is take to be the shadow price of recreation. The result also indicates that the recreation demand has a negative relation with the shadow price of recreation and the relation is positive with respect to income of the consumers and this is in line with the theoretical foundation. Moreover, traveler's willingness to pay has a positive relation with income, marital status, level of education, and travel interest, but with respect to quality of wetland, this relation is negative

Determination of Iran’s Competitiveness Place Among other Countries of the World

The Concept of Competitiveness is considerable from The micro and macro points of views. The present study in regard to the meanings of competitiveness is concentrating on a few distinctions First on The meaning's of competitiveness in the evolutionary ideology of comparative advantage and also dynamic comparative advantage in today's world has been considered by trade economists. In most studies, Competitive Compound index has been Categorized based on its determining Factors. But in this particular study, in addition to determining factors, the effects of the above mentioned indexes on factors of product function have been also considered. Because the original approach of this study is based on the fact that factors of comparativeness and ultimately to economic growth by the variables of the product function.  Therefore in this study, first there has been a brief review over  Comparative advantage theory, dynamic Comparative advantage, and comparative advantage, then several different definitions of comparatives Competitiveness will be presented, and then by reviewing experimental studies in regard to competitiveness.  The indexes of labor competitiveness, Capital, and technology will be introduced and then by the method of numerical taxonomy for 57 countries during 1995 to 2003, the above mentioned indexes will be calculated. It is notable that Iran has never been considered in any of the competitiveness studies in the world and these calculations has never been done for Iran. In this study Iran's rank in reported indexes has been calculated and Iran's competitiveness place among the countries of the world has been determined. For evaluation of calculated index, one aggregated index from the 3 mentioned indexes has been calculated, and compared with the indexes of other studies

Comparing the Comparative Efficiency of System Marginal Price and Pay as Bid Auctions in Electricity Markets

System marginal price auction and pay as bid auction are common auctions in electricity markets. The present article discusses the impacts of selecting between different common auctions in electricity markets (system marginal price auction and pay as bid auction) on production efficiency, total efficiency and average expected price in an asymmetric information situation, where each player’s information about the marginal cost of the competitor is incomplete. A model is designed to conduct the comparative study of alternative auction mechanisms. The model is based on two profit maximizing players, with full information about their marginal cost and incomplete information about their competitor. Assumptions which has been used to construct the model are based on Iran’s electricity market structure. The outcome indicates that although production efficiency in alternative auction mechanism do not differ from each other, expected price under system marginal price auction is lower than pay as bid mechanism. Vice versa occurs in total efficiency