Faslnāmah-i Pizhūhish/Nāmah-i Iqtisādī (Sep 2014)
Institutional Innovations that Reduce Transaction Cost and Their Role in Economic Development: Iran's Experiments
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to open new horizons for decision-making and resource allocation system in Iran in order to meet the national development goals. To this end, we have relied on theoretical framework of institutionalism and the important finding of historical institutionalists that “History of development is the economic history of institutional innovations that reduce transactions cost” to analize underlying factors of institutional changes and significant role of government and historical context in path of institutional innovations of reducing transaction cost and features of said innovations that result in development and reduction of transaction cost in developed societies. Also,by referring to the economic history of our country, we have tried to render and study important evidence of prominent achievements to reduce transactions cost. To achieve such purpose, we have presented two samples of said innovations in post-revolution Iran "clarification of costs and sources that are based on dollar unit " and "clarification of foreign trade rules" and we have compared the situation before and after these innovations. The result of this research indicates that in the context of the political economy of Iran, it is possible to increase the speed of realization of national development goals trough institutional innovations of increasing opportunity cost for rent seeking and drowing up manufacturers’s trust.