The impact of corruption on carbon emissions is one of the main objectives of empirical studies on environmental economics. Recently, a theoretical discussion was conducted on the significant impact ...of reducing the level of corruption on environmental quality in developing rather than in developed countries. In this study, an empirical investigation of this claim was conducted using panel data which included 61 countries, between 2003 and 2016. The effects of corruption on carbon emission were considered using a panel threshold model. The threshold variable included human development index (HDI) which divided countries into developing and developed ones endogenously. According to the results, the value of threshold (γ = 0.753) was consistent with the categorization of UNDP countries by HDI. In developing countries, for each unit of increase in the corruption index –which means a decrease in corruption levels– we observe a 0.08 unit decrease in carbon emission while carbon emission is no longer affected by the corruption levels in developed countries and decrease in corruption does not have a significant effect on carbon emission levels.
Environmental concerns related to fossil fuels utilization has developed different energy/environmental policy tools that Carbon tax is one of the important ones. There are huge debates among ...different political parties related to the positive and negative effects of the carbon tax on the energy and environmental policies of the countries. However, carbon tax not only can have effects on the utilization and consumption of energy sources portfolios, but it may also have negative or positive effects on the economy, industry, and social welfare of the countries that should be identified and analyzed, in particular for countries with high energy-intensive industries such as Finland. The purpose of this research is to answer the question: "How does Carbon Tax affect social welfare and emission reduction in Finland?" We use the computable general equilibrium model to analyze the impact of the carbon tax on social welfare and the rate of emission reduction. Considering the fact that Finland has several years of carbon tax policy application background, evaluation of the impact of this policy on Finland's social-environmental structure is very valuable for other countries, especially newcomers. Our results show that despite carbon tax policy in Finland has been successful in the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, however, it has negative effects on the social welfare of Finns. Therefore, an optimum level of the carbon price is recommended for future policy revision
FDI not only increases capital supply in the host country, but can also improve the productivity of domestic firms through knowledge transfer. Dutch diseases and technology spillover can be some of ...the important effects of FDI in the oil and gas (OIG) sector. The Dutch disease refers to the problems associated with negative consequences of large increases in a country's raw materials such as oil and gas. However, affecting productivity depends on the absorptive capacity or the ability to adapt foreign technology by domestic firms. If Foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow is without productivity spillover, it may have negative effects on economy, especially if the destination of FDI is sectors such as Oil and gas sector(OIG). FDI not only plays a vital role in the development of this sector, but also significantly affects the macro and micro levels. Identifying the type and extent of these effects on economy requires quantitative and empirical evaluations. Therefore, the current research has tried to study the effects of FDI in the OIG sector on Iran's economy using a regional CGE model. The results showed that if FDI does not lead to productivity spillover, it causes Dutch disease in the economy of Iran. Production and employment have decreased in tradable and increased in non-tradable sectors. If FDI improves productivity of the firms, the impacts of Dutch disease will be reduced or eliminated. Therefore, production will be improved in all sectors, and consumer price index will decrease. In this regard, the absorptive capacity of domestic firms plays an important role in the extent of technology spillover and finally reducing the impact of Dutch disease.
•GTAP model used to consider the effects of FDI inflow to oil and gas sector on Iranian economy.•FDI inflow leads to an increase in the price of goods in all sectors with higher effects on the price of non-tradable.•FDI inflow has negative impact on production and employment of tradable sectors.•Foreign technology spillovers through FDI can significantly decrease the effects of Dutch disease.•As the capability of a firm in absorbing the externality of FDI be higher, the effect of spillover will be higher.
The present study aimed to assess the environmental effects of FDI considering the pollution haven and halo hypotheses. The originality of this article lies in the fact that FDI modeling was done ...using environmental CGE models, including the modeling of scale, composition, and technique effects of FDI. We execute four scenarios that allow us to consider the impacts of FDI inflow. The results of the first and second scenarios (50% and 100% shock to FDI, respectively) revealed that CO2 emissions increased; however, the increase was more intense in the second scenario. A comparison of these two scenarios indicated that higher FDI leads to higher pollution. In addition, the scale and composition effects were positive, and the technique effect was negative in both scenarios. Nonetheless, the pollution haven hypothesis was confirmed. The third and fourth scenarios (100% shock to FDI with 2.5% and 5% energy efficiency improvement) showed that CO2 emissions increased at a slower rate compared with the first and second scenarios. Moreover, the scale and composition effects were positive, while the technique effect was negative. The comparison of the third and fourth scenarios revealed that higher energy efficiency growth led to decreased CO2 emissions; also, the technique effect became more negative, the scale effect became more positive, and the composition effect decreased. Overall, provided that FDI was accompanied by improvement of energy efficiency, carbon intensity decreased in a way that might lead to a reduction in CO2 emissions. We found that if energy efficiency improvement reached more than 10%, pollution resulting from FDI became negative, and the technique and composition effects nullified the scale effect. Therefore, the pollution halo hypothesis was confirmed. Based on these results, it is recommended that policymakers seek energy-efficient investment with high technology levels to improve the environmental quality and lower the use of polluting energy inputs such as gas.
Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) was oxidized and chemically functionalized by 3-hydroxy-4-((3-silylpropylimino) methyl) phenol (HSPIMP) and characterized with FT-IR technique. This new sorbent ...was used for enrichment and preconcentration of Cu2+, Ni2+, Zn2+, Pb2+, Co2+, Fe3+ ions. Variables such as pH, amount of solid phase, eluting solution conditions (type, volume and concentrations) have significant effect on sorption and recoveries of analytes and the influence was optimized. At optimum value of conditions, the interference of other ions on understudy ions recoveries was investigated. The metal ions loaded on the solid phase via chelation with the new sorbent and subsequently efficiently eluted using 6mL of 4molL−1 HNO3 solution. At each run, metal ions content was determined by flame atomic absorption spectrometry (FAAS). Relative standard deviation (N=3) for determination of 0.2μgmL−1 of analytes was between 1.6 and 3.0%, while their detection limit was between 1.0 and 2.6ngmL−1 (3Sb, n=10). The sorption capacity of HSPIMP–MWCNT for understudy ions was above 30mgg−1. The proposed method successfully applied for the extraction and determination of the understudy metal ions in different samples.
Introduction: Poverty reduction is one of the important macroeconomic goals of any country, but achieving this important issue requires examining the factors affecting it. Changing the age structure ...of the population is one of the effective factors in reducing poverty in countries. Therefore, governments can make the most of their population, given the capacity of countries and providing the necessary conditions, and as a result, achieve high growth and development among countries. The purpose of this study is to investigate and analyze the effect of population age structure on poverty in Iran. Method: The method of this research is analytical-descriptive. First, theoretical topics and experimental studies and research data are collected, and the appropriate analysis model is selected. Then, with the Generalized Method of Momen for Iran since 1975 until 2017, the desired research models have been estimated, and finally, using statistical and econometric inferences, the research results have been studied. Findings: In general, according to the results, it can be concluded that the dependent population of the child and years of schooling have a negative and significant relationship with the dependent variable, the elderly dependent population has a negative and significant relationship with the dependent variable and also the percentage of trade in GDP and Physical capital inventories have a negative relationship with the dependent variable. Discussion: In this study, the years of schooling, the percentage of trade in GDP, as well as capital stock are based on a coefficient that agrees with the theory. The positive effect of the elderly population on poverty reduction indicates the existence of high savings in old age. Paying attention to the growth of highly educated employees as well as employing specialized personnel increases the productivity of the labor force and also creates the possibility of creating new production methods that have significant effects on poverty reduction.
Background: Technical efficiency, which is measured by calculating the ratio of products to resources, is the most important factor in assessing the efficiency status of organizations. Data ...envelopment analysis is useful to measure the efficiency score of all the units which have homogeneous input resources and output products and to rank them. The aim of this study was to measure and compare the efficiency of health performance in medical universities in Iran.Methods: The present research is a cross-sectional study to measure the efficiency of health performance using the national information of the health system of Iran. Input data include hospital beds, specialists, general physicians, dentists, pharmacists, nurses, midwives, computerised topography scan and magnetic resonance imagination devices, and Gini Index; also, the output data include pregnancy care coverage, infant mortality rate, low birth weight, and in-patient days. These data were attained from the annual Ministry of Health and Medical Education report in 2017 for 46 medical universities. To estimate the efficiency of health performance of each medical university using data envelopment analysis, we designed an input-oriented model with Variable Returns to Scale in GAMS 28.2.0. The effect of contextual factors on the efficiency score was calculated using the Tobit Regression model.Results: Results showed that only 19 (41%) medical universities were on the efficiency frontier. The highest mean of efficiency score was attributed to eastern areas, followed by the western and northern areas, and the worst status was related to southern parts of the country. The efficiency scores of universities located in northern areas were closer, while there was more difference among the efficiency scores of the universities of central areas of the country. Tobit regression shows that significant factors inefficiency include life expectancy and medical university class.Conclusion: The results of this study emphasized the differences in the performance efficiency of medical universities. Considering the inefficiency of smaller universities, we need to make careful decisions in establishing new universities in small cities.
Multiwalled carbon nanotubes chemically functionalized with 2-((3-silylpropylimino) methyl) phenol (SPIMP-MWCNT) and successfully applied for the solid phase extraction (SPE) of some metal ions in ...food samples. The influences of the analytical parameters including pH, amounts of solid phase, eluent conditions (type, volume and concentrations), sample volume and interference of some metal ions on the recoveries of ions Cu²⁺, Pb²⁺, Fe²⁺, Ni²⁺ and Zn²⁺ ion were investigated. The metal ions retained on SPIMP-MWCNT was eluted using 6 mL of 4 mol L⁻¹ HNO₃ solution and their content was determined by flame atomic absorption spectrometry (FAAS) with recoveries more than 95% and relative standard deviations (n = 5) between 2.4–3.4% for both reproducibility and repeatability. The detection limit of this metal ions was between 1.0–2.6 ng mL⁻¹ (3Sb, n = 10) and their preconcentration factor was 100, while their loading capacity was above 32.9 mg g⁻¹ of SPIMP-MWCNT. The proposed method was successfully applied for the preconcentration and determination of analytes in different samples.
Investment is as much as important for economic and social development that it is considered as one of the powerful levers for achieving the development. Accordingly, it is of great importance to ...assess the investment risk and its spillovers in all developed and developing countries because the risk phenomenon is one of the key features of decision making in the field of investment, affairs related to financial markets and a variety of economic activities. In this regard, the present paper evaluates the effect of investment risk spillover on key economic indicators using a computable general equilibrium model and the GTAP.9 database and the 2011 social accounting matrix (SAM) have been used for this purpose. Two scenarios of 10% and 3% increase in investment risk are considered in order to investigate the effect of these changes according to a recent trend analysis of economic indicators in Iran and the trend of the Iranian economy towards globalization and opening of the economy windows. The results show that both scenarios reduce investment risk, inflation, gross domestic product and total investment. Government expenditures are reduced in all sectors of the economy except for the service sector, which is almost unchanged. The exports are increased in all sectors and the imports are declined in sectors of agriculture, industry and services. As well as, the results show that the import of the oil and gas sector has not been heavily influenced by the investment risk due to its governmental status. By assessing these two scenarios and the sensitivity of the macroeconomic indicators to the degree of risk change, it can be stated that the key economic indicators will be significantly improved by managing the risk of investment; and the country will ultimately follow the development path more quickly.
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