Iran has a relatively diversified economic structure. With rising oil prices the country has experienced a respectable growth rate of above 5% in the last few yeas. The country’s health and education indicators, according to the World Bank data, are among the best in the region.

Nevertheless Iran’s continued transition toward a viable and efficient market economy has been slow. Most of 70 million Iran’s population are young with increasing expectations of better future. Nevertheless employment creation has remained slow. There is general consensus that attainment of a much higher growth rates is necessary to provide employment for country’s fast growing labour force, including Iran’s highly educated women.

The economic problems have been further accentuated by inflationary pressures arising from expansionist monetary and fiscal policies that are the pillar of government populist policies particularly since 2006. Furthermore the US unilateral sanctions that has inhibited growth of private investment has adversely affected the development of the oil, gas, petrochemical, manufacturing and the financial sectors.

The purpose of this one day conference is to provide an academic forum to debate the implications and the appropriate policy response to critical issues that are currently facing the economy. The theme of the conference is broad. It includes: industrial development, financial sector, social and regional policy, female employment, free trade zones, social and class structure, and economic policy. More information about the conference will be announced later on.

Conference organizer: Dr Parvin Alizadeh, Senior Lecturer in Economics

Contributors include (though not confined to):

• Professor M. Hashem Pesaran, University of Cambridge, Trinity College
• Professor Massoud Karshenas, University of London, SOAS
• Professor Sohrab Behdad, Denison University, OH, USA
• Professor Fatemeh Moghadam, Hofstra University, NY, USA
• Professor Farhad Nomani, Professor at the American University of Paris
• Lord Lamont, Chairman, British Iranian Chamber of Commerce
• Dr Hassan Hakimian, Senior Lecturer, Cass Business School
• Dr Peter Wynarczyk, LMBS
• Dr Parvin Alizadeh, LMBS
  
  

Paper submission

Please send the first draft of the completed paper to Parvin Alizadeh. Neither abstracts are considered nor papers that are already published. Papers are expected to be original and based on current events and data. Deadline for submission has been extended from 01 May 2008 to 05 May 2008. Authors of the accepted papers will be informed by 15 May 2008.

Papers should be emailed to: p.alizadeh@londonmet.ac.uk