IRANIAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
Year:2018 | Volume:22 | Issue:4|Papers Count:12

predicting the amount of country imports toward assessing trade balance and its effect on the balance of payments (BOP) and finally money supply, general level of prices and the rate of economic growth is of paramount importance. Therefore, economic policymakers seriously need a model which cannot only predict the volume of imports well but also be capable of revising the initial prediction over time as soon as new data for the explanatory variables are available. To this purpose, mixed frequency data sampling model was used which allows time series variables with different annual, seasonal and even daily frequencies to be used in a single regression model. In estimating the model using the software R, annual real imports, real exports and quarterly of real GDP, real exchange rate and the volatilities of the real exchange rate in the range of 1988 to 2014 are used. Information related to 2014 is not used in preliminary estimation of relationship, so that the predictive power of the model outside of the estimated range can be tested. The proposed model predicts that real imports of goods as49948 million dollars for 2014 which is associated with an error of only41 million dollars, or about 8 percent, compared to its real amount achieved of49907 million dollars. The result suggests that the predictive power of the MIDAS model is very satisfactory.

the relationship between birth order and child's human capital is studied in this paper. A Microeconomic model is designed to analyze the intrahousehold behavior on resource allocation and its outcomes for children. Since adding up a child changes the method of intrahousehold resource allocation, the expenditures of investment in child's human capital has been changed too. The aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of birth order on educational achievement which measured by average of scores and score of math as two measures of educational quality and by years of schooling as a measure of quantity of education. In general, five samples from Tehran are used: the first includes primary students in grade 4 and the second and third samples cover single persons (male and female) who are at least 20 years old. The fourth and fifth samples include married persons (male and female) who are at least 35 years old. According to these data, the regression analysis is used to present evidence and test hypothesis. Results suggest that the increase of birth order reduces both the quantity and quality of children's education in the sense that the latest children have lower level of education than the earliest ones.

the study seeks to investigate both linear and nonlinear effects of oil price movement on critical macroeconomic variables (output, price and exchange rate) in Nigeria using ARDL modeling approach. Previous studies substantially relied on linear methods using VAR approach to unravel this links without a clear conclusion. In an attempt to seek better results in this study, we employ both linear and nonlinear ARDL modeling techniques that inherently allows for asymmetric effect. Based on the theoretical proposition of ARDL methods that does require that all data are either stationary at level or at first difference or the combination of the two. We perform unit root tests and other required econometrics tests. Consequently, linear and nonlinear ARDL estimation techniques were carried out. The results from linear and non-linear estimations indicate that oil price movement has statistical significant effects on critical macroeconomic variables in Nigeria (output, price and exchange rate) both in the short-run and long-run but there is evidence of asymmetric effect for output and exchange rate only. Therefore the study concludes there is no asymmetric effect of oil price movement on general price level in Nigeria but there are statistically significant asymmetric effects of oil price movement on output and exchange rate in the country.

the completed MCI includes three main channels of interest rate, exchange rate and credit rate. In developing countries such as Iran, this indicator, which contains a credit channel, could be better used to illustrate the country’ s monetary condition. This study has been done to calculate this index for the period of 1978– 2012. For this purpose, the function of the total economy demand is estimated in order to extract the variables weight in this index, using the self-explanatory Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach. According to the model estimation results, the exchange rates weights are higher than interest rate channel in the MCI calculation. Using the weights derived from the model estimation, the nominal and real MCI have been calculated. Eventually, by estimating the inflation equation and comparing the root mean squared error (RMSE) of the two, it has been found that the predictive power of inflation in the real MCI is higher than the nominal.

connecting to rule-makers in order to set favorable rules (lobbying) or paying government executives to bend the current rule (bribing) are the two main strategies for influencing government. This study in an evolutionary game model explain why bribing may become widespread while other states like compliance and cooperative lobbying are Pareto superior. The theoretical model is used to study the effect of social parameters on firm’ s choice between lobbying and bribing. The results indicate that social disapproval of bribery has a negative impact on corruption. The effect, however, depends on the history of countries. Countries with a long history of corruption have much more difficult task in fight with corruption. Cooperation was the second social factor to be investigated. The effect of cooperation on lobbying is indirect through alleviating the difficulty and costs of linking to the government. Whenever and wherever linking is difficult, firms by cooperation, can make it less impeding.

this paper empirically examines the impact of dependence structure between the assets on the portfolio optimization, composed of Tehran Stock Exchange Price Index and Borsa Istanbul 100 Index. In this regard, the method of the Copula family functions is proposed as powerful and flexible tool to determine the structure of dependence. Finally, the impact of the dependence structure on the risk identification and the optimized portfolio selection, will be analyzed. The results show that the t-student copula function provides the best performance among other Copula functions. Also, empirical evidence suggests that the performance of the GJR-Copula-CVaR method is relatively more accurate and more flexible than other common methods of optimization.

this paper has considered the impact of unemployment on health capital in 136 countries during 2002– 2010. The review of presented literature on health capital shows that the life expectancy has been considered as a proxy for health capital. Although, there are numerous studies that surveyed the mental and physical effects of unemployment, but there is no previous study in our knowledge that investigates the influence of unemployment on life expectancy in these countries. In addition, the effects of other macroeconomic factors including inflation, gross capital formation and development degree on life expectancy are analyzed as well. To do this, the data provided by World Bank is used and the presented model is estimated by panel data method. The results show that unemployment affects the life expectancy, negatively. Also, the effect of inflation on life expectancy is negative and statistically significant. However, gross capital formation is the main positive economic factors for improving longevity. The development degree of countries is positively related to the life expectancy. So, the average of life expectancy in developed countries is more than poor countries. Also, the urbanity is the main socio-environmental cause for life expectancy. Therefore, in terms of policy, it is recommended that the planning for creating the new job opportunities and enhancing the national incomes take in consider by policy makers in order to use of health capital benefits for economic development especially in developing countries.

the financial crisis in 2007-2008 has turned into the most far-reaching international financial and economic crisis since the Great Depression. Indeed, the crisis-affected Asian countries experienced varying degrees of changes in the exchange rate and prices following an initial shock of sharp depreciation of their currencies in the second half of 1997. Moreover, questions connected with the exchange rate regime have been an important part of understanding macroeconomic policies and outcomes in Asia. Thus, the objective of this paper is to examine pass-through effects on domestic prices among the four selected Asian countries, Japan and S. Korea from the east and Iran and Turkey from the west, with special emphasis on an interaction between prices, monetary policies and exchange rate changes. In order to take into account dynamic effects between these variables, the structural vector auto-regression (SVAR) method is employed, by which the responses of such shocked variables are evaluated during 1970-2015. The empirical results confirmed a dynamic relationship between exchange rate pass-through and other macro variables in the selected countries. Also, the results have shown that the pass-through shocks in the short-run are more effective in the countries which benefit from a managed floating exchange rate regime and inflation targeting policy.

demonetization initiative by Govt. of India in Nov-Dec, 2016 aimed at addressing the issues like black money, hoarding and overall cleansing the monetary system. This paper in this regard attempts to empirically examine the impact of demonetization drive upon the monetary system by taking data of 180 days prior to Nov, 2016. The cointegration results exhibit show a long run cointegration between the money supply, demonetization dummy, cash in hand, notes in circulation and bank deposits. Furthermore, our Bayer-Hanck cointegration also confirms the cointegration among the variables. Our error correction mechanism analysis shows the long run relation between the variables. The variance decomposition analysis further states that effect of demonetization is widely visible upon the cash in hand followed by the notes in circulation. Despite the wider claims by the government regarding the positive impacts of demonetization drive, this initiative is fraught with several challenges and limitations. The implications of this initiative are discussed in this paper.

the purpose of this study is to evaluate the efficiency of date growers in Saravan County using non-parametric methods. The measurement of date farmers’ efficiency and the comparison of their performance to with one another can play an important role in improving their efficiency and productivity. One of the common methods to measure efficiency is data envelopment analysis (DEA). Despite its advantages, this method cannot measure efficiency in a sound way when few decision-making units (DMUs) are available. Therefore, DEA window analysis approach is used to ramp up the number of DMUs in order to make it possible to measure the efficiency of the farmers. This study used DEA window analysis approach to determine date growers’ efficiency in Saravan County over 2012-2016. The results show that the efficiency score of farmers is <1, which indicates their inefficiency so that means efficiency score was found to be 0. 93, 0. 92 and 0. 95 per year in Zaboli, Sib and Suran districts, respectively. Technological change was one of the most influential factors in changing total productivity of agriculture. It is, therefore, suggested that modern technologies be adopted to enhance the efficiency of date production in the studied region.

this study employs a structural vector autoregression (SVAR) model to investigate the macroeconomic shocks on Malaysian tourism industry, especially how the economy dynamically responds to oil price shocks, exchange rates, changes in price level, exports, economic growth and tourism income during the study time period from January 2001 to December 2012. The results indicate that oil price shocks, economic growth, exchange rate, and exports have a contemporaneous inverse impact on tourism revenues except for consumer price index which has a positive impact. This study added instant information to manage tourism industry in Malaysia. The findings of the study are useful to implement a number of corrective measures for the promotion of tourism in a country.

in this paper, the effects of the Food Stamp (FS) Program (now referred to as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-SNAP) on individuals’ food choices are evaluated. In other words, I examine how households' food choice or relative food consumption is changed by FS participation. For this purpose six food groups are created using 2016 Consumer Expenditure Diary Survey (CEDS) results and Consumer Price Index (CPI). Five of these food groups are food consumed at home which are bakery products, dairy products, meat and meat products, vegetables, and others. Also food consumed away from home is included as sixth group. Multinomial probit and conditional logit models are applied to analyze the data set. The analyses results show that FS can change individuals' food choices by decreasing the price effect on food since FS is a kind of income transfer which subsequently affects participants' price sensitivity. In addition, the results show that FSusage may increase the relative meat consumption of households and food consumed away from home in comparison to other food groups.