Government Policy and Regional Development in Germany

This thesis investigates how government policy shapes regional economic development in Germany, with a specific focus on subnational disparities that aggregate-level analyses frequently neglect. Adopting a disaggregated NUTS-3 framework, the study analyzes the impact of regional tax competition on the feasibility of a harmonized tax system, its effects on attracting economic activities across regions, and the role of industrial agglomeration in determining regional resilience to economic shocks. Employing advanced econometric methods on disaggregated regional and firm-level data, this study demonstrates how fiscal decentralization generates heterogeneous policy outcomes. The analysis reveals that tax competition significantly reduces the feasibility of tax harmonization while exhibiting limited effectiveness in attracting economic activities. Furthermore, industrial agglomeration produces divergent resilience patterns, enhancing stability in rural regions but amplifying economic volatility in urban centers. These results indicate that policy interventions require careful differentiation based on a region's position along the urban-rural continuum

Prediction of CO2 Emissions in Iran using Grey and ARIMA Models

The examination of economic aspects of gas emissions and its consequences is very important, especially in terms of its volume at the current increasing trend. Therefore, the prediction of air pollution emissions of carbon dioxide can give the correct direction to policies adopted.  Hence, studying and forecasting of gas emissions is necessary. The purpose of this paper is the prediction of CO2 emissions based on Grey System and Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average and comparison of these two methods by RMSE, MAE and MAPE metrics. The results show the more accuracy of Grey system forecasting rather than other methods of prediction.  Also, based on the estimated results, the amount of carbon dioxide emissions will reach up to 925.68 million tons in 2020 which shows an increase of 66 percent growth compared to 2010 which is highly significant. Keywords: Carbon Dioxide Emissions; Forecasting; Grey system; Iran JEL Classifications: C22; C53; Q5

Exchange Rate Impacts on Investment of Manufacturing Sectors in Iran

As a major factor in the development process and economic policies evaluation, investment and its growth rate have been considered in many studies. This paper examines the relationship between changes in exchange rate and the investment of manufacturing sectors in Iran during1995 to 2009 using the panel data approach. So, the annual data of manufacturing sectors is used to examine the impact of real exchange rate fluctuations on industrial investment. It is found a negative and statistically significant impact of real exchange rate movements on manufacturing investment