Journal of Economic Research
Year:2019 | Volume:53 | Issue:4 |Papers Count:11

The purpose of this study is to evaluate crude oil swap of Iran with Caspian countries. In crude oil swap contracts, Iran can take two roles: "the Swapper" or "the Buyer and Seller". Also, receiving crude oil from the Caspian countries and delivering equivalent of value of that from the south of Iran can take place simultaneously and non-simultaneously. The datasets contain oil future contract price for period of 1999-2012. Life of swap is assumed to be 5 years. But, it is also increased to 7 years. The results show that It would be more beneficial for Iran to play the role of "the Buyer and Seller" than the role of "the Swapper" in swap contract. Finally, the longer the life of the swap, the higher profitability level will be.

The purpose of this study is to determine the sustainable size of the metropolises of Iran during the years 2006-2015, by using the surplus function, based on the presence of the government as a provider of public goods and services. For this purpose using the total surplus function approach which is defined by the difference between the total income and the total expenditure of the households working and living in the large cities, the sustainable size of the metropolises of Iran is estimated. Findings of this research show that the total benefits and total costs increase as population of cites increases. The comparison of sustainable and actual values of Iranian metropolises shows that the sustainable city size of Tehran and Mashhad is less than the actual population they have and only 83% of the total population of Tehran and 91% of the total population of Mashhad can gain net benefits. But for other metropolises of Iran, the sustainable city size is more than the actual population From among the metropolises of Iran, Urmia has the highest and Esfahan has the least incentive to migrate.

"Rebound effect" is a term that implies by improving energy efficiency, the real cost energy services per unit decreases and therefore demand increases for energy services. Hence, the potential energy saving and reducing CO2 emissions from improving efficiency will be offset. The main objective in this study is the calculation of direct CO2 rebound effects from improving energy efficiency in the transportation sector, which was conducted for Iran provinces during the period 2006-2015 in three stages; First, by using the Slutsky equation, computational formula direct CO2 rebound effects is extracted, and then with estimated price and income elasticities of demand in the transportation sector, the direct CO2 rebound effects was calculated for the 30 provinces in ten years. The results show that the rebound effects due to the implementation of the elimination of energy subsidies and increasing fuel prices, have a trend convergence and declining effect (on average 2/51 to 1/09 percent).

The purpose of this study is to financially evaluate solar energy utilization in Phase 13 of South Pars gas platform instead of using fossil fuels to provide the required energy for the mentioned platform. For this purpose, the life cycle cost analysis method, the cost of producing kilowatt hours of energy in the photovoltaic system and fossil power plant (in two scenarios) have been used. The results show that the cost per kilowatt hour of energy generated by the solar power plant is 26125 IRR (Rials) and the cost per kilowatt hour of energy production by fossil power plant in the first scenario taken into account the actual price of diesel fuel is 45165 IRR and in the second scenario taken into account the subsidy price of diesel fuel is 40795 IRR. Comparing the two scenarios concluded that using a fossil fuel plant is not economically justified due to high fuel costs, the need for full time worker, flotation and environmental pollution and therefore, solar power plant scenario enjoys a higher priority over diesel power plant.

Energy-intensive industries in Iran are responsible for a significant share of energy consumption, especially oil products. Therefore, there is a major focus on promoting energy efficiency in such industries. Energy efficiency improvement results in rebound and backfire effects. In this paper we estimate the effects of fuels, electricity and energy efficiency improvement in energy intensive industries based on computational general equilibrium model. Simulation is done for six scenarios, including 3. 1% efficiency improvement of electricity, fuels and energy for energy intensive industries and all sectors of economy. Results show that the rebound effects in chemical and basic metal industries are considerable (For instance, there are rebound effects of 79%, 94% and 92% in the last third scenarios in chemical industry). In addition, efficiency improvement will result in production cost decrease. Chemical and non-metallic mineral industries experiencing the most decreases of production cost around 0. 9% and 0. 6%, respectively.

The Relationship between economic growth and foreign direct investment (FDI) has been a subject of discussions for many researchers, economists and policy analysts in time. This study carried out to investigate the impact of FDI on economic growth. We consider the role of natural resources by using panel threshold regression model for 83 countries for 1996 to 2015 period. Research model formed based on Hansen’ s (1999) suggested model and estimated by Wang’ s (2015) proposed method for fixed effect models. Results of threshold regression model showed that natural resources, domestic capital formation, population growth rate and governance indicator has statistically significant effect on economic growth. Threshold level for natural resources variable is 28. 58 percentage of natural resources’ export to total goods export. FDI variable has different effect on economic growth in different regimes. In the first regime it increase economic growth but in the second one, that natural resources is more than threshold level, FDI decrease GDP growth rate. This result approved “ Resource Curse” problem posed by Auty (1993). Investigation of relationship between interaction variables and economic growth in another model revealed that interaction variable governance indicator and natural resources and also another interaction variable gross domestic capital formation and natural resources affect economic growth.

The agricultural sector is one of the most important sectors in Iranian economy, whose development and expansion policies can lead to a significant increase in the output of other sectors of the economy. On the other hand, increasing investment in this sector will probably increase incomes of urban and rural groups more than other sectors of the economy. In this research, using the social accounting matrix of 2011 and using structural path analysis approach, we examine the effects of the development and expansion of agricultural sector on the sectors production and income of the sectors and income groups have been investigated. The results of this research show that institutionalized production paths reveal a greater degree of global effect of the agricultural sector on other sectors. On the other hand, the paths that reveal the development and expansion of the agricultural sector on income groups include agriculture, mixed incomes, and compensation for services (labor) and income groups. Also, few routes include operating surplus (capital).

The purpose of this study is to investigate the the permanent and transitory components of household income, liquidity (money) and government expenditures to identify economic shocks affected the household consumption in Iran. For this target, using the univariate stochastic detrending approach proposed by Beveridge and Nelson (BN), we decompose the time series data of these variables over the period (1974-2014) into permanent and transitory components. Using the technique of ARDL, the effects of the permanent and transitory of the shocks on households' consumption are studied. The paper results show that there is positive and significant relationship between household consumption and temporary and permanent income shocks and permanent liquidity shocks, whereas a significant and negative relationship with permanent government spending shocks in Iran. Thus, the fiscal, monetary and income government policies should be in a way that keep the permanent income of Iranian households from any destructive shock on economy.

Unemployment is a common but alarming phenomenon in our country's economy that brought about many social and economic problems. The paper attempts to investigate one of the economic harms caused by unemployment that has been less studied. It seems that not only unemployment affects the consumption of unemployed households, but it also affects employed households. in the way that unemployment, as a modifying factor of income expectations, affects household consumption. To study this issue, this article attempted to specify a formula for consumption based on economic theories and estimated its coefficients through using household income-expenditure data provided by the Statistical Center of Iran and employing panel data method. Results indicate that households, in the face of rising unemployment at the community level, reduce their consumption by 1. 5% in response to one percent increase in unemployment rate. Moreover, their share of food consumption increase while the share of nonfood expenditures tends to fall.

Intra-industry trade (IIT) can raise trade integration among trading partners through expanding commodity circulation, reducing technology gap, and creating an economic scale. According to the role of trade integration in improving trade efficiency and the role of IIT in expanding trade integration, the aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of IIT indices as proxies for trade integration on the bilateral trade efficiency of neutral gas and other hydrocarbon gases among Iran and its major partners. Hence, this study tries to identify the determinants of bilateral trade flows of the selected products among Iran and its major partners using the Poisson pseudo-maximum-likelihood method during 1997-2016. Then, the bilateral trade efficiency of the selected products has been calculated using the Malmquist index. Finally, the effect of trade integration via IIT indices on the bilateral trade efficiency has been evaluated using the panel data method during 1998-2016. Based on the results, the GDP per capita, the difference of gas reserves, the common border, and the IIT indices have positive effects on the bilateral trade flows, while the coefficient of geographical distance is negative. The results also show that the relationship between the IIT indices and the bilateral trade efficiency is positive.