Economic and Planning Research
Year:2024 | Volume:28 | Issue:4|Papers Count:6

The prevalent narrative regarding the surge of inflationary pressures in the Iranian economy over the past five years emphasizes the growth of lending by the banking system. Monetary policy over the last few years has also focused on limiting the growth of broad money aggregates. However, despite a substantial reduction in the growth rate of M2, the rate of inflation has persisted above the long-run trend. Naturally, questions arise whether higher rates of inflation since 1397 are the consequence of higher monetary growth rates or whether other factors can explain the recent bouts of elevated inflationary pressures. Moreover, how effective is the announced policy of targeting the growth rate M2 aiming at reducing the inflation rate in the short and the long run? The present study proposes that the concurrence of three different but related factors-exchange rate fluctuations, weakening of asset demand for rial, and the lack of an effective policy anchor to curb inflationary expectations-provide a more accurate and complete narrative than a simple monetary explanation. We employ a structural vector autoregression model for short-run analysis and a vector error correction specification for the long-run analysis to identify which macroeconomic variables have had a more significant role in generating inflationary pressures during the 1367Q2-1402Q2 period.

This study uses the grounded theory to find the similarities between the processes through which the ownership of different state-owned companies has been transferred as debt settlement, and the challenges with which these companies have been dealing after the transfer. The data that have been used for the analysis is based on the interviews with the relevant officials, organizational documents, and other evidence pertaining to the transfer of the ownership of four companies to pension funds (Aseman Airways, Tabriz Machinery, Raja Railway Transport, Iran Tobacco. This paper's main findings are: (1) all of the transfers have been made without competition and the consent of pension funds,(2) the transfers have been made despite severe problems with which the companies had been dealing, although, according to the explicit content of the law, structural reform is the prerequisite of the ownership transfer,(3) the privatization organization has not supervised the performance of the transferred companies,(4) the transfers have been made without evaluating whether the buyers met the qualification requirements,(5) there was not a single procedure for financial evaluation of the companies,and (6) there was not an appropriate process for the delegation of the public responsibilities of the companies to the relevant governance sectors. In fact, in all of the transfers we have studied, the government has neglected the prerequisites, and privatization in the sense of transferring the ownership to the private sector to improve efficiency has not happened, and the government has violated its commitments to achieve the main goal of privatization (which is financing the budget deficit).

Income inequality is a major problem in most countries, particularly the underdeveloped world. Unequal distribution of income weakens the achievement of sustainable global economic growth and acts as an impasse to achieve the goals of sustainable development, including the reduction of poverty and hunger in the world. One of the most important factors affecting income inequality is the rent of natural resources, which can have different effects depending on the way natural resources are used. This study was conducted to investigate the effect of natural resource rent on income inequality, taking into account the role of the shadow economy and the human capital index. For this purpose, the annual data of 1971-2020 and the Markov-switching method were used. The results show that natural resources have a positive and significant effect on income inequality,furthermore, the relationship of shadow economy with income inequality in both regimes (low and high levels of inequality is significantly positive, and the effect of human capital on income inequality in both regimes is negative and significant. This study is presented with recommendations to politicians to promote the legalization of undeclared economic activities and reduce dependence on natural resources as mechanisms to reduce the structural problem of income inequality.

The current research aims to answer the question as to by which channels the oil shock is transmitted to the stock market and how it spreads in the stock market. In this regard, the Factor-Augmented VAR approach, and also the global price index of commodity groups, macroeconomic variables, indices of large listed industries, and the total index of the Tehran Stock Exchange (for the period 2004-2016) have been used. Hence, the action-reaction functions are extracted in order to study the transmission mechanism of the oil price shock and its propagation in the stock market of Iran as an oil-exporting country. The findings show the impact of the oil shock on the stock market through three channels: (a) direct channels (b) global commodity price channels and (c) macroeconomic channels. Furthermore, based on the effects of the oil shock, the way of reaction from these channels is different. Accordingly, in the process of spreading the oil price shock in the stock market, the index of the group of petroleum products, chemical products, basic metals, metal ore extraction, multidisciplinary industrial, banking, and cement sectors, and consequently the total stock market index, increases significantly and steadily.

Market disorder and irrational behavior of investors escalate stock market volatility. This research has been conducted to identify drivers and consequences of behavioral bias and strategies for reducing the effects of bias behavioral in institutional investors by implementing the correlation research method. The evidence collected from a possible statistical sample of 607 legal investors has been analyzed using a questionnaire, confirmatory factor analysis, and structural equation modeling. The results have shown that increasing the causes and bases of bias (social and psychological factors, knowledge and experience, and market) leads to an increase in behavioral biases and the use of behavioral biases strategy in investors' decision-making. Also, the strategy to reduce behavioral biases is influenced by behavioral biases, background factors, and intervening factors. In the end, the success of investors is significantly influenced by behavioral bias reduction strategy, the causes of the behavior biases, and the behavioral biases. Evidence has shown that the investigated model has predictive validity for investment performance, and institutional investors can benefit from this study by understanding the influence of behavioral factors on investors' decisions.

Regional balanced growth is one of the major goals of economic policymakers in the field of sustainable national development,and according to the degree of development and deprivation of the regions, different policies and planning are required. Health is one of the factors affecting human capital, productivity, and sustainable economic development. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the impact of health on economic growth along with many other effective factors based on the level of prosperity and deprivation of the provinces of the country. This research is a descriptive-analytical and applied study, in which, by taking the form of the Cobb-Douglas production function, the effect of the health index on economic growth is analyzed in three groups of provinces of the country (privileged, relatively privileged, and underprivileged), with the panel data approach of co-integration, and with the fully modified least square. According to the results, the effect of household health expenditure, household education expenditure, construction credits, private investment in housing, urbanization, and the degree of economic participation on economic growth in all three regions has been positive and significant. With a 100% increase in household health expenditures, the GDP of underprivileged provinces will grow 22, 2%, while the GDP of relatively privileged and privileged provinces will grow respectively 19, 6% and 16, 7%. The results also show that the government's focus on health in all provinces, especially in underprivileged and relatively privileged ones, is very effective in strengthening economic growth. The results also demonstrate that the health index is a long-term variable, and health-related policies have long-term effects on economic growth and development.