Research Article
A. Falahati; Sh. Fatahi; E. Rezaei
Abstract
Introduction: Today uncertainty has a special place in the economic literature, shock and uncertainty can affect the market structure and the performance of policies and macroeconomic by changing behavior of actors at micro level. A demand shock is a sudden surprise event that temporarily increases or ...
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Introduction: Today uncertainty has a special place in the economic literature, shock and uncertainty can affect the market structure and the performance of policies and macroeconomic by changing behavior of actors at micro level. A demand shock is a sudden surprise event that temporarily increases or decreases demand for goods or services. A positive demand shock increases demand, while a negative demand shock decreases demand. Both a positive demand shock and negative demand shock have different effect on the prices of goods and services. Terrorist event, technological advances and government stimulus programs are examples of events that can cause demand shocks. This paper intends to investigate the structure and behavior of the meat industry to the market unexpected changes in demand (demand shocks). Because having a reliable policy at the micro level is an important precondition for better performance at the macro levels. This industry was selected for some reasons. First, cyclical fluctuations promised substantial demand-side variation. Second, firms in this industry most likely learned about marketplace behavior primarily through contacts with their customers and suppliers. Because this information was limited, the meat producers may well have been unable to distinguish between demand declines and rival cheating if they were colluding.
Materials and Methods: This article makes inferences about oligopoly behavior by observing industry’s respond to unexpected changes in the market price. In particular, the econometric methodology identifies firms that act more competitively following unexpected declines in demand. This behavior is interpreted as a pricing strategy of Green and Porter “price-trigger” oligopoly model. In the "trigger price" literature, this behavior is interpreted as a punishment mechanism practiced by members of an industry who cannot distinguish between negative-demand shocks and rival cheating. In the Green and Porter model, the dynamic oligopoly equilibrium fluctuates between static cartel behavior and static non-cooperative behavior. The timing of these shifts is uncorrelated with movement in observable exogenous demand-shift or supply-shift variables. In other word Green and Porter described how firms, when faced with unobservable demand, use an unobservable external price to detect whether rivals are adhering to an implicit collusive outcome. If price falls below some level, the trigger price, firms infer that a rival “cheated” by expanding output. They then retaliate by also expanding output to reduce the gains from cheating for the rival firm. Rotenberg and Saloner (1986) also focus on the gains to cheating, but notes that these gains are greatest during periods when demand is high, or booms. So, this paper intends to investigate the structure and behavior of the meat industry to the market unexpected demand changes. Because having a reliable policy at the micro level is an important precondition for better performance at the macro level. The model hypothesizes that packer oligopoly markup decrease following unexpected declines in demand for beef. The empirical task is to test this hypothesis
The demand shocks that cause margin to decline will make firms act more competitively only if these shocks lead firms to suspect an increase in output by the competing firms.
Empirical analysis is presented based on a system of simultaneous equations model (functions of supply and demand) ordinary least squares estimation method (Because of over identification of both equations), in which the vector of residuals from function of demand, consistently estimates the vector of demand shock. The variable DUM takes a value of 1 when RES is a large negative number in absolute value and 0 for small negative values and for positive values of RES. Thus, DUM is triggered in periods during which the competing firms feel the greatest threat of increase in output by competing firms, hence the greatest incentive to increase their own output. The hypothesis of interest can be tested by examining whether this coefficient on DUM is negative.
Results and Discussion: The purpose of this paper is evaluating behavioral and structural changes under unexpected demand fluctuations by using the quarterly data of 1996-2016. Quarterly observations provide a plausible approximation to the lag in this industry between firms observing unexpected price declines and their output response. The results showed that the demand shock with a small coefficient of 0.1 has a negative and significant effect on the logarithmic beef price variable, this result confirms trigger price policy and shows that the structure of the Iranian meat market has the potential for changing to become more competitive, following the negative shock of demand, so that the results will enable policy makers, by designing and presenting a suitable pattern, to make the way easy for the industry toward development goals and implementing competitive and anti-monopoly policies.
Conclusions: The econometric methodology is showed that firms in Iranian meat industry act more competitively following unexpected declines in demand
Research Article
E. Pishbahar; R. Ferdowsi; B. Hayati
Abstract
Introduction: The dairy industry in Iran, for the proper use of production capacities and achieving a desirable position in a competitive environment, especially in the international arena, first requires the success of the domestic market using the right marketing methods. As a result, knowing the appropriate ...
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Introduction: The dairy industry in Iran, for the proper use of production capacities and achieving a desirable position in a competitive environment, especially in the international arena, first requires the success of the domestic market using the right marketing methods. As a result, knowing the appropriate marketing strategies with respect to the company's situation can help further the growth of this industry. Marketing strategy is a tool for the organization to respond to competitive situations, and the existing frameworks in this field will help the company to effectively interact with the strategic sectors of the company and external factors. The marketing strategy can help create and develop knowledge and skills in the company, focus on customer needs, facilitate information and activity in a dynamic market environment. Due to the changing environment, having the appropriate strategy can help firms survive and gain competitive advantage; because the chosen strategy must also satisfy the needs of the target market, as well as comply with market and organizational objectives.
Material and Methods: Given that measures the quantity and quality as compliance with sanitary and environmental, risks, the economic - commercial, customer satisfaction, a competitive advantage, innovation and alignment with the market and align with internal process influence on appropriate marketing strategy and often are interdependent, it is a difficult, complex and cumbersome activity. In this research, by study of library resources, the most important criteria on the choice of appropriate marketing strategy to sell dairy products of Eastern Azerbaijan Pegah Company were identified. Due to the difficulties, using of tools that could be modeling network relationships could be useful. DEMATEL method is one of the known methods for determining network relationships between variables. So in this article a hybrid model based on Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), DEMATEL and VIKOR techniques have been proposed to prioritize marketing strategies. For this purpose, the weight of criteria is calculated by AHP method and using a pair wise comparison process. Then DEMATEL method according to the interdependence criteria, reform its weight importance. Finally, VIKOR method is used for prioritizing alternatives (strategies).
Results and Discussion: In the first stage of this research, with the assumption of the independence of the criteria, a AHP model was used to calculate the weights of the criteria. In the next stage, assuming the interdependence between the criteria, a hybrid method AHP-DEMATEL was used, and it was found that the final weight obtained both methods are almost identical, and the result is that the criteria of the model are not interdependent. In addition, based on the weights obtained for the criteria, the most important criteria were as follows: compliance with the health and environment, align with the internal process, risk, economic-commercial, having competitive advantage, innovation and alignment with the market, and customer satisfaction. The DEMATEL technique also concludes that Pegah should consider the competitive advantage criterion as the most important criterion in choosing its marketing strategy because it takes the most impact from other criteria and has the most impact on other criteria. In the last step, four considered strategies in the present study were ranked with VIKOR method and concluded that diversification and focus strategies are the first priority for the East Azerbaijan Pegah company. In addition, the integration strategy and defensive strategy respectively are the second and third priority.
Conclusions: The results of AHP model showed that compliance with the principles of health and environmental criteria is mainly criteria in the selection marketing strategy of the company. The results of DEMATEL techniques showed that the risk, economic - trade and innovation criteria and to align with market standards are cause criteria and among them, the criterion of "economic-commercial" has the greatest impact on other criteria. While compliance with the principles of environmental and health standards, customer satisfaction, competitive advantage and alignment with the company's internal process criteria are disabled. The results of VIKOR model also showed that diversity and focus strategies are first priority for the Pegah Azerbaijan Company. Then, the impact of each of the criteria obtained on four marketing strategy including the integration strategy, focus strategy, diversification strategy and defense strategy were reviewed and defensive strategy as the best marketing strategy for Eastern Azerbaijan Pegah Company was determined. And integration strategy, diversification strategy and focus strategy are the next priorities respectively. Be recommended that the Eastern Azerbaijan Pegah corporate executives instead of using plastic bags, bottles and plastic packaging, use bags that are biodegradable in the environment. The company directors also have a long-term plan to develop new products, and to understand the needs and demands of customers and their complaints and herds increase customer satisfaction.
Research Article
R. Moghaddasi; Zh. Kamaei
Abstract
Introduction: Agriculture as one of the important Iranian economic sectors is in transition from traditional to industrial stage. Despite of many critical obstacles such as, drought and severe water shortage, prevalence of traditional irrigation methods and low level of irrigation efficiency, small farm ...
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Introduction: Agriculture as one of the important Iranian economic sectors is in transition from traditional to industrial stage. Despite of many critical obstacles such as, drought and severe water shortage, prevalence of traditional irrigation methods and low level of irrigation efficiency, small farm plots and low level of farmers' education, self-sufficiency in main food items including wheat is defined as one of the goals with high priority in the five years national development plans. Due to above mentioned challenges government is not able to increase wheat acreage (extensive farming) thus, producing more from each unit of land (intensive farming) should be chosen as the best policy. In this course, it is indispensable to transfer available technical knowledge (such as new improved seeds) from research institutes to agricultural fields, and this should be seriously followed in national development programs. By this way, one question of high importance from policy making point of view is that what are the main factors determining rate and speed of adoption of new seeds by farmers? So the main objective of the present study was set to identify main influential drivers on speed of adoption of some recently developed wheat seeds in city of Savojbolagh, Alborz province.
Materials and Methods: The present research not only introduces application of the so-called survival analysis method in Iranian agricultural economics literature for the first time, but also tries to explore the main affecting variables on the speed of adoption of five newly introduced improved wheat seeds (Bahar, Pishtaz, Pishgam, Parsi, and Sivand) by local farmers in city of Savojbolagh, Alborz province. The required data was collected via field survey and interview by 140 wheat growers selected by simple random sampling during 2015/16 cropping year. Dependent variable is defined as the difference (number of days) between times of supplying new seed in the region and time that farmer decided to apply it. Initial list of regressors (selected based on review of relevant literature) includes: age and sex of farmer, family size, education, yield, farming experience, acreage, experience in wheat farming, distance of farmer's home from offices (both in rural and urban areas) supplying new seeds and some qualitative variables controlling for attendance in extension and training workshops, insured crop, land ownership and farming as the main job.
In the estimation process, different functional forms used in previous studies, were estimated via both backward elimination and forward selection algorithms in order to find the best explanatory variables for each model. Furthermore, suitable model specification is opted based on common model selection criteria including: Akaike Information Criteria (AIC), Schwarz Bayesian Criteria (SBC) and Likelihood Ratio (LR).
Results: Main results confirmed superiority of the Weibull model over its competing alternatives in terms of explaining power, economically, statistically and econometrically sound estimates. This is in line with previous works. To be specific, significant coefficients were found for non-farm income (qualitative variable), yield, farmer's experience and education, and training courses (qualitative variable). These positively and significantly affect the reduction of the time required to new seeds being adopted by farmers. Here, production per hectare (yield) has the greatest impact in terms of parameter magnitude. This suggests that the more productive seed would be adopted in a relatively shorter time. On the other hand, taking farming as the main job and the distance from home to urban shops offering new seeds revealed negative impact on the time to adopt improved seeds. Moreover, land ownership, farmer's age, crop insurance, quality of the seeds, and the distance from home to local shops presenting new seeds were found to be ineffective as far as the adoption time of new seeds was concerned.
Discussion: Given the significant contribution of farming experience and attendance in training courses into the reduction of required time to accept new seeds, it is recommended to take advantage of the experiences of pioneers in the use of new wheat seeds in training other farmers and provide a basis for practical experience exchange among wheat growers. Here, the Ministry of Jihad-Agriculture (deputy in extension and education affairs) plays a key role. It should allocate required budget for setting workshops introducing new seeds to farmers. Moreover, simplicity of access to new seeds is another influential factor suggesting increase in the number of offices providing new seeds as another policy recommendation. This could be done as a public-private participatory (PPP) action. In order to be a job creative policy, it is highly recommended to engage agriculture- educated students into the process.
Research Article
Gh. Dashti; P. Bagheri; E. Pishbahar; A. Majnooni
Abstract
Introduction: Climate is one of the basic factors in nature that its change is one of the most important challenges in current century. Increasing emissions of greenhouse gases, as the most important affecting factor on climate change, lead to change of temperature, precipitation and other climatic parameters. ...
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Introduction: Climate is one of the basic factors in nature that its change is one of the most important challenges in current century. Increasing emissions of greenhouse gases, as the most important affecting factor on climate change, lead to change of temperature, precipitation and other climatic parameters. Unlike the other sectors, agricultural sector is more vulnerable to damages caused by climate change, so that the atmosphere precipitation and temperature average patterns changing damages the horticultural and agricultural production which are the main food sources in society. Both amount and quality of production reduction arises from climate change, consequently put farmers' income at risk. In the group of cereals, wheat was the most important crop in the country during the 2013-2014 crop year with the highest cropping area of 51.22%. East Azerbaijan province with the cultivated area of 40.6% of the country's total wheat has ranked sixth among producers of this crop. Ahar, one of the largest producers of wheat, has 95.5% of the province's cultivated area. Rainfall and temperature variations show climate risks for wheat, which are the most important indicators of climate change. Usually, the highest correlation is found between wheat yield and rainfall, so that the correlation coefficient between wheat yield of Ahar and rainfall in wheat growing season (October to July) was 45%, which indicates that most of the variation of yield is explained by rainfall. Therefore, risk management in agricultural sector, particularly weather risk, is highly important; however, risk management strategy cannot be implemented properly without identifying and measuring it. Hence, with attention to the importance of weather risk measurement, in this present study we tried to measure the rainfed wheat yield risk caused by climate change in Ahar County in two base (1986-2015) and future periods (2016-2045).
Materials and Methods: We applied weather Value at Risk (VaR) and weather conditional value at risk (CVaR), aquacrop, HadCM3 general circulation models under A2 emission scenarios and downscaling Lars-wg application. For this purpose, we collected weather information between 1986 and 2015 from East Azerbaijan Province Meteorological Organization, yield and soil feature data of 1991-2015 crop years from Management of Agriculture of the city of Ahar. The concept of ‘Weather Value at Risk’ represents a method to measure non-catastrophic economic weather risks. It captures both a socio-economic indicator’s sensitivity and exposure towards weather variability. Weather-VaR (α) denotes the Value at Risk resulting from adverse weather conditions, and represents–for a given level of confidence [α] over a given period of time–the maximum expected losses. Conditional Value at Risk (CVaR) attempts to address the shortcomings of VaR model, which is a statistical technique used to measure the level of risk within a firm. Conditional Value at Risk (CVaR) also known as the expected shortfall is a risk assessment measure that quantifies the amount of tail risk an investment portfolio has. CVaR is derived by taking a weighted average of the “extreme” losses in the tail of the distribution of possible returns, beyond the value at risk (VaR) cutoff point.. AquaCrop was chosen because it is a crop water productivity model that simulates yield response to water of herbaceous crops, and can be used specifically in situations where water is a key limiting factor in crop production. AquaCrop has the additional advantage that it is relatively simple and robust and uses “a relatively small number of explicit and mostly-intuitive parameters and input variables requiring simple methods for their determination”. AquaCrop was specifically designed for “assessing water-limited, attainable crop yields at a given geographical location” and “carrying out future climate scenario analyses.
Results and Discussion: The results show that in the future period, precipitation, maximum and minimum temperature, solar radiation, maximum and minimum relative humidity, wind speed and evapotranspiration variables will shift 9.15 millimeters, 0.63 and 0.56 Celsius degrees, 0.06 MJ/m2/d, -0.61 and -0.29 percent, 0.03 m/s and 18.48 millimeters per year, respectively. Based on the weather variables change, the yield average will increase from 0.954 in the base period to 0.999 t/ha in the future period, and beta and wakeby distribution were selected for yield as the best distributions to measure risk. Compared to base period, yield risk is reduced. In three probability levels, that is 1, 5 and 10 percent, and based on VaR method the amounts of risk reduction were obtained 0.139, 0.83 and 0.61 for beta distribution, and 0.297, 0.81 and 0.31 tons per hectare, respectively for wakeby distribution, while in CVaR method for beta distribution were 0.158, 0.115 and 0.93, and for wakeby distribution were 0.403, 0.148 and 0.77 tons per hectare, respectively.
Conclusions: According to the results, evapotranspiration is one of the variables that increase the yield risk; therefore, it is recommended that farmers use the natural and artificial mulch to reduce evaporation from the soil surface.
Research Article
S.M. Mojaverian; M. Taghizadeh; H. Amirnezhad
Abstract
Introduction: Eliminating the deprivation of less developed areas has always been considered as a challenge to the realization of economic and social justice in the country that was not realized due to various reasons such as geographical isolation, imposed war and insecurities, inconsistencies and limiting ...
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Introduction: Eliminating the deprivation of less developed areas has always been considered as a challenge to the realization of economic and social justice in the country that was not realized due to various reasons such as geographical isolation, imposed war and insecurities, inconsistencies and limiting factors of investment security, and credits. The budget and credit law is one of the most important strategic tools to achieve the goals of each country. Credits are the most important tools for tracking policies and priorities, programing, and modifying activities. Therefore, the proper understanding of this tool and its principled application, as well as the optimal allocation method, is very important. In general, the governments are attempting to allocate the resources optimally and reduce inequalities through optimal programing. Accreditation is regarded as a strategic tool for implementing the government's duties in the economy which can provide a competent and accountable government and promote people's participation. The previous studies indicated that traditional budget allocation patterns are not efficient and appropriate leading to inequality and widening gap between regions. Using traditional accreditation patterns led to the acceleration of inappropriate allocation of spatial areas of population, facilities, infrastructure and investment in Iran. Optimality and efficiency are considered as the most important aspects of budgeting and accreditation, which can improve the financial performance of the government, decrease inequality and increase the level of development in the regions. In this regard, the researchers always attempted to provide a scientific approach based on mathematical optimization methods for the optimal and efficient allocation of financial and credit resources.
Materials and Methods: Goal programing approach was introduced by Charnes and Cooper (7). It was one of the approaches to multi-objective decision-making problems classified as mathematical optimization approaches with multiple targets. This model presented an optimal solution for optimizing the objective function in accordance with the applied constraints based on decision-making atmosphere and developed constraints.
In this method, a certain number was determined for the goal and the related target function was categorized. Finally, the answer minimizing the total weight of each target deviation than the goal determined for the same target was searched. In order to optimize the appropriation of agricultural credits in Kerman province, a goal planning model was designed and presented for achieving the goals. In this method, for each goal, a certain number is assigned to the ideal, then the target function is formulated. Finally, a search result is obtained that the total weight of the deviation of each goal is related to the ideal determined to minimize the same goal. The most important macroeconomic, social and environmental goals including 6 indices: comparative advantage, labor productivity, water productivity, land productivity, fertilizer productivity and mechanization coefficient, respectively were considered for the model. Fuzzy AHP method was used to determine the coefficient of importance of these indices in nine northern township of this province.
Results and Discussion: The results show that to achieve the common goals of different township of the province, it is necessary to allocate more credits to all township, especially Rafsanjan, Sirjan, Shahrbabak, Bardsir and Baft. The reason for such an outcome is the existence of capacity and potential of agriculture in these township. In Kerman, considering the available capacity and potential in agriculture, it is not necessary to use more credits. Thus, allocating credits to the county of Kerman is practically equal to carrying out the project at a higher cost. Nonetheless, other township can certainly and potentially attract more funding at a lower cost. It is worthwhile to say that to achieve the overall objectives of this study, goal programing models for reallocating agricultural credits to the field has been used. In other words, due to existing and available credits, we can plan purposefully and reprogram to achieve higher levels of macro goals in agriculture in Kerman province
Conclusions: Based on the results, the credits allocated in 2014 which was made by law was not balanced. Second, considering ideals, the allocation of available credits is not optimal. Comparing the six considered ideals, all ideals, except the mechanization coefficient ideal which is higher in this situation, were lower; therefore, the present allocation of credits is not optimal. Third, the ideals could be realized if there was a convergent allocation in the agricultural credits (a convergence allocation means using more capacities and potentials in more potent Townships). In other words, the capacities and capabilities of the agricultural activities in these Townships have remained useless due to the lack of awareness and incorrect allocation of credits. Therefore, these potentials can be used with the low cost in order to reduce regional inequality, and make a convergence in the production and employment in Kerman province if a balanced budget and programs agricultural credits related can be launched.
Research Article
R. Amirhajloo; A. Fatahi Ardakani; M. Fehresti; A. Neshat
Abstract
Introduction: The natural resources in any country are considered as the important infrastructures for economic development; this mainly applies to developing countries. Climate change and imbalance of rainfall over the year has made shortage of water a fundamental crisis in Esfahan Province; therefore, ...
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Introduction: The natural resources in any country are considered as the important infrastructures for economic development; this mainly applies to developing countries. Climate change and imbalance of rainfall over the year has made shortage of water a fundamental crisis in Esfahan Province; therefore, providing strategies and instructions which are in accordance with climate conditions of the country will significantly help to get out of the present critical situation. In this regard, dam-building projects have been one of the strategies which have been used to face these crises. Lack of attention to consequences of human interventions in environment and lack of considering these damages in considering pros and cons of man-made structures will cause reduction of natural resources and will increase the growing process of dam-building in the country. Prevention of damages to the environment can increase construction of dams in the country.
Materials and Methods: The purpose of this project is environmental analysis of one of the 10 dams of the country using comprehensive management program, so by estimating the damage and its cost, in addition to making managers aware, it is possible to announce maximum support of people for ecosystem management. Results in cost-profit analyses of developing Zayanderood Dam and its watering and also authorities' attention to more investment on the most important performance in view of the people of this province. This method can also be used to reform national accounts. In this method, first, created values of Zayanderood River flowing are considered and then each performance was evaluated. Improving environmental features of building a dam includes reducing public recreational areas (because the river does not flow), destroying some plant species around the river, Gavkhuni Swamp, animal species (such as fishes, water and migrant animals) and also destroying Gavkhuni Swamp (which in general because of no more flowing of the river Zayanderood and lack of watering of this swamp by Zayanderood river, it has been totally dry and destroyed) has been estimated. Similarly, choice experiment was employed for estimation of economic value of recreational areas, some plant species around the river, Gavkhuni Swamp, animal species by means of D Optimal design and distributions of 150 questionnaires in river ward zayanderood district during various seasons (2016) and the nested logit model.
Results and Discussion: The results of this research indicated that total value of recreational areas, some plant species around the river, Gavkhuni Swamp, and animal species were estimated 1176,610,852, and 566 thousand rials respectively. Among services damaged of zayanderood rangeland ecosystem, the maximum value belongs to recreational areas and of protection Gavkhuni Swamp. Ignoring and destruction can be the cause of not enough knowledge about the value of the local and natural ecosystem. Sometimes these effects may decrease the remedy of justification of collusion, and cannot evaluate composing dam and gains for local people. All the payment appetency of the family to improve all the properties, computed 320 thousand rials in this year. This research has prepared for estimating environmental effects of composing zayanderood dam and estimating effects of different sides of dam. Final results of the final orientation of the interest of families in paying each environmental feature of Zayanderood Dam determine the environmental damage of this dam and showed that mwtp (marginal willingness to pay) was positive for every recreational, vegetative species, animal species and Gavkhuni Swamp and this means that improving these features increases the average satisfaction obtained by using these dams. Regarding the results of this study, significant amounts of interest in payment for different features of the river showed the strong will of people to exit these conditions of the river.
Conclusions: Based on the results of this research, it can be argued that increasing the amount of attention to the various characteristics of the Zayandehrood River is due to the strong determination of people to get out of the current situation. Thus, one of the strategies for improving the environmental conditions of river in the current situation is the general participation of the people of the region. On the other hand, through the development of a coherent program to allocate water between Isfahan and Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari provinces, and also improving water use efficiency, especially in the agricultural sector which is a major consumer of water, the rate of decline in water can be controlled. Obviously, the present research is a preliminary study and a comprehensive assessment of the profit-to-cost ratio is necessary for providing more accurate information on the cost of constructing the dam(s).The finding indicated that the study area had high importance and value therefore it is necessary for accurate administration and planning to increase awareness of the people in the study area. Also the results showed that the studied case zone has a high importance so planning to decrease the remnant of environment is very necessary. User-friendly and comprehensive studies (especially environmental) are essential for increasing economic plans.
Research Article
S.H. Mohammadzadeh; A.R. Karbasi; H. Mohammadi
Abstract
Introduction: Reducing dependence of the Iranian economy on crude oil exports and turning towards multi-product economy in export should change export policies to export non-oil products including export of agricultural products. Medicinal plants are one of the important items of agricultural exports ...
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Introduction: Reducing dependence of the Iranian economy on crude oil exports and turning towards multi-product economy in export should change export policies to export non-oil products including export of agricultural products. Medicinal plants are one of the important items of agricultural exports that in recent years, despite an increase in acreage and production, exports did not grow up with it. Iran's share of the world market for medicinal plants is less than 1%. Khorasan Razavi Province is one of the leading provinces in the production and trading of medicinal plants. Determining the type of strategy to enter the foreign markets according to market conditions is one of the most important factors affecting the development of exports, especially in the agricultural sector. The aim of this study is to investigate the factors affecting the choice of strategy to enter the foreign markets of medicinal plants of exporting companies in Khorasan Razavi province.
Materials and Methods: Khorasan Razavi province is one of the leading provinces in the production and export of medicinal plants. Saffron, Cumin, Thyme and Damask rose are among the most important export items in Khorasan Razavi province. There are 85 active companies in the field of exporting medicinal plants in Khersan Razavi province. Sampling method has been census. After removal of questionnaires and information, 64 questionnaires with complete information were examined. In order to investigate the factors affecting the selection of three types of strategies for entering the foreign markets, medicinal herbs for the period of 2016-2011 were used for the econometric model of multi nomial logit Panel model. The use of the multinomial logit panel model is necessary for the data that is composed of the time series and the sectional, as well as its dependent variable having classes and is not arranged.
Results and Discussion: Before using the model, the test was performed by Hausman test and the results of this test showed that the fixed effect pattern was chosen as the superior model. Export risks include company size, marketing mix, sanctions, export experience of companies in international markets, share of research and development costs in marketing costs, location attraction index including country development target, ease of investment in target country, economic stability. The goal of the country, such as inflation, employment rate, domestic production, labor force, diversification index of export destinations, and the availability of a credible brand, have been introduced from other factors affecting the choice of entry strategy in the study. In this study, after analyzing the static data and the linearity test, the estimated logit model for panel data was employed. The results showed that R & D variables, valid brand and marketing mix increase the probability of choosing an export strategy compared to other two types of foreign market entry strategy. Other variables affecting the model increase the probability of choosing non-export and interstitial strategies for the export strategy. The final effects of explanatory variables were calculated in three modes of change in mean, change in deviation and change of variable from minimum to maximum. The final effect states that if, for example, the size of a firm's size variable changes one unit of its average, the chances of choosing an export strategy would be reduced by 83.1 percent, and the selection of non-exporting and interstitial strategies increased by 31.5 percent and 51.4 percent, respectively. Find out If this variable changes a unit of its standard deviation, the choice of the export strategy will decrease by 76.2%, and the selection of the non-exporting and interstitial strategy will increase by 21.7% and 32.7% respectively. If this variable changes from at least its maximum, the chances of choosing an export strategy will decrease by as much as 35% and the probability of choosing two non-exporting and interstitial strategies will increase by 11.7% and 27.4% respectively. The results of theis study showed that change in two variables of international sanctions and marketing mix increases the chances of choosing export strategy than two other strategies.
Conclusions: Based on the results of this study, it is suggested that exporting companies of medicinal plants of the province with other companies wishing to enter the foreign markets make it necessary to examine a market from different perspectives and according to different criteria so they can decide how to enter the market. The gathering of field information during the research showed the type of company managers' attention to various factors can also is the basis for choosing any kind of strategy. Managers who prefer domestic conditions they are looking for a direct export strategy.