Journal of Economic Research and Policies
Year:2018 | Volume:26 | Issue:87|Papers Count:9

This study aims to investigate the factors affecting multidimensional poverty, as a complicated socioeconomic problem in Iran. To overcome some problems and limitations which the previous studies encountered them, we used a multilevel model to analyze individual and macro level factors simultaneously. First, we explain the Alkire-Foster model of measuring multidimensional poverty in detail and measured this index in Iran and all its 31 provinces during 2005-2015. Then we use 7 variables in individual level (Household size, education level of head of households, education level of the head’ s spouse, sex, age and marital status of the head and independence degree of households members) and 10 variables in the province (GDP, per capita value added of education sector, per capita value added of health sector, per capita value added of social security sector, unemployment rate, inflation rate, per capita government expenditures, per capita government investment, per capita tax and degree of urbanization) to analyze the factors affecting multidimensional poverty. The results show that both individual and macro level factors affect the multidimensional poverty index. By comparing the estimated coefficients, among the individual level factors, education level of head of household, independence degree of household’ s members and household size are the most affecting variables and in the macro level factors, the inflation rate is the most important variable.

The aim of this paper is to study the effects of recessions and booms of the housing market on credit tightening in Iranian banking system. So, we use dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model based on New Keynesians approach. By setting the parameters and the initial values with using the calibration method for during 1369-1394, the validity of the proposed framework to simulate the model for Iran’ s economy are confirmed by the results. Furthermore, the results of the survey show that the negative housing demand shock with a price reduction in the housing market would cause a decrease in the quality of bank’ s balance sheets, and banks credit supply, as a result of this process, decrease and credit tightening will occur. A positive housing demand shock, not only lead to increases the credibility of banks but also induce decreases in the consumption, production, investment and employment in the non-housing sector, so eventually cause the GDP to decrease. With consideration of housing price increase, the general level of prices would increase too. As a result, the prosperity of housing market demand not only has not any positive effect on the economy but also is a factor of the recession in the economy.

Good implementation of corporate governance principles is considered an important tool for the stability and soundness of a financial institution. An extensive body of studies has done about the effects of corporate governance on firm performance. The majority of those studies have found a more corporate value for implementing those principles. Due to these facts, the assessment of compliance with corporate governance principles is a critical factor for external inspectors to be sure about the long-term sustainability of any economic organization. Based on these facts, this research aims to introduce a suitable mechanism for measurement of Iranian banking corporate governance, and calculation of corporate governance in a bank as a sample through a set of value measures, elements, and indices. This mechanism helps to score banks compliance with four corporate governance principles: accountability, responsibility, transparency, and fairness and rank them according to their score. For valuation of importance coefficients for each of the measures and elements, we use the viewpoints of the experts. To calculate the final corporate governance index for the sample bank, the value of any sub-indices is derived from published information and other information related to the bank.

The optimal inflation tax rate is very controversial. Many economists follow Friedman (1969) in regarding the focus on welfare costs of the inflation tax and conclude that the optimal level of the inflation tax is zero. In contrast, some economists follow Phelps (1973) in regarding claim that the inflation tax is a kind of tax and so according to the Ramsey rule it has a positive optimal rate. The present paper investigates the effect of inflation tax on agricultural, industrial, and services sectors using a structural vector error correction model with weakly exogenous variable (SVECX) during the period 1979-2012 (available data on capital in 2017). The findings indicate that the agricultural sector is not affected by inflationary finance policies, but inflation tax and financial repression lead to decrease output of the industry and services sectors. Then the negative impact of the inflation tax is confirmed in Iran’ s economy. Based on the adverse effects of the inflation tax on the output growth, it can be concluded that, according to Friedman’ s rule, the "zero rate" for the inflation tax should be considered as an optimal policy in the policymaking.

The importance of surveying the relationship between human capital and labor productivity is major at the macroeconomic level. Since the service section has a high share in the economy, this issue becomes more important. In this regard, in the paper, we have been studied the impact of different dimensions of human capital (education, health, and experience) on improving the workers' productivity of the service section in the micro level. In this order, we emphasize the individual characteristics of employees in this sector. We use the net income received from the wage earners and salaried workers in the private sector of services section (as a proxy for the labor productivity) to estimate an econometric model for the Iranian economy. In order to estimate Quantile Regression (QR), Households Income and Expenditure Survey is used for urban areas in 2013. The results show all dimensions of human capital (education, health, and experience) have a positive and significant effect on the productivity of labor (or net income) among wage earners and salaried workers of the service sector in different quantiles. In addition, in various quantiles, not only the coefficients of health indicators are more volatile, but also the coefficients of these indicators in many quantiles, especially in the lower half, are higher than the other indicators of human capital. In Q1, the rate of labor productivity response to health indicators is higher than that response in the higher quantile (Qh).

According to the growth literature, dozens of factors affect the growth and its process. The multiplicity of determinants of growth has caused uncertainty in the modeling and impeded consensus among the researchers. In the growth econometric theory, the theory and the chosen region dictate the effect of several specific factors. This paper has studied conventional approaches and Bayesian methods and compares these the way in which they work efficiently in determining the most effective determinants of economic growth in the Islamic cooperative countries. Therefore, Bayesian Model Averaging, Bayesian Maximum Likelihood, Fixed effects, Random effects and GMM in panel data have been used and the results have been compared. Due to differences in the economic structure of these countries, with other countries, in some area like industrialization and diversity of exports and social features, the capabilities of Bayesian approaches and conventional methods, were compared in the identification of growth factors and in this order we used data related to the Organization of Islamic cooperation countries during the period 1975-2015. According to the results, in a Bayesian space, and in the BMA approach, factors like saving rates, the credit of private sector, foreign direct investment, and exchange rate have put the robust impact on economic growth in these countries. In applying the BMA, investment has been ineffective, and the rest of the factors have affected economic growth in a different order. The results from conventional approaches are somewhat different from the results of Bayesian methods. The results of this research can be used in modeling economic growth and better management of the growth process in Islamic countries.

The purpose of this paper is to examine a systematic relationship between environmental pollution and economic development in Iran. Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) is an empirical relationship to illustrate the links between environmental pollution, income, and economic growth. By testing EKC hypothesis, a question is answered implicitly: Do high per capita income and the growth lead to reduce pollution? Here, we first estimate the model with using Iran's (country) time series data, and then, we apply the panel data of Iran's provinces in the model. The existence of EKC does not rejected by the results of nonparametric estimation of time series data (Iran) and the results of parametric estimation of panel data (Iran's states) for Iran. Based on empirical confirmation of EKC pattern in Iran, it can be concluded that increase in the income can lead to clean environmental pollution derived from early stages of economic growth through some mechanisms – including imposing the tax on emissions, establishing control rules and regulations and activation of.

Unemployment Protection Policies is considered as one of the important policies of the labor market and social security system, and this is also noted in the fundamental laws in Iran. Nevertheless, the implementation of these policies has been limited. Since these policies are multi-dimensional, the policy implementation needs to use the experts’ wisdom. But these experts have different interpretations for the policies, their impacts and their priority for execution. In this paper, the Delphi method is used for group decision making for analyzing the Unemployment Protection policies and the fuzzy theory notions are applied for modeling verbal variables in the experts’ ideas. Accordingly, the most important challenges and approaches in dealing with the Unemployment protection policies are extracted by running three steps of the Fuzzy Delphi method and are ranked by Fuzzy AHP. According to experts opinion, the most important prioritized policies for supporting the unemployed people are conditioning the benefit unemployment payment to the unemployed people go to employment and training centers, revision of the unemployment insurance law, Establishing an electronic and non-electronic mechanism for monitoring the unemployment issues and detecting the violations of the law, Employment Programming for newcomers to the job market, defining employment rights, and reforming the dichotomy between the two executive organizations. The experts believe that determining the amount of unemployment insurance benefit should be subject to reductions based on the rejection of proposed jobs, based on theories related to search for a job, the independence of the wage, and the number of collateral dependents. Reducing the period of benefit unemployment, reducing or eliminating the periods that the unemployment benefits are paid based on the insurances records, the implementation of Article 10 of the unemployment insurance law, and the production of a job identification card to determine the type of skill are the recommended policies that help to determine the period of unemployment benefits. According to the experts opinions, the optimal allocation of resources and costs for unemployment insurance can be available by implementing some policies such as modifying the financing of the unemployment insurance fund, "comprehensive coverage" of the unemployment insurance, financing from the public tax, designing of a comprehensive information system for the labor market, annual budget planning with regarding to training skills according to the day needs, systemic supervision on financial activities of the unemployment insurance fund.

The adoption of appropriate foreign exchange policies has always been one of the main issues in the developing countries, including Iran. The exchange rate volatility plays a key role in the economic performance. The consumption sector as one of the components of total demand is one of the key sectors in the economy that affects the exchange rate and its fluctuations. Therefore, the main purpose of this paper is to identify the main factors influencing on private consumption with the emphasis on exchange rate volatility and its asymmetry effects. To do it, firstly, real exchange rate volatility is estimated by IGARCH model and then it is decomposed for positive and negative shocks. Finally, the asymmetric effects of positive and negative shocks of exchange rate volatilities on private consumption behavior are estimated using the nonlinear ARDL model during the period 1960-2016. In general, the results show that private consumption behavior is a function of fluctuations and uncertainties of exchange rate, rather than being influenced by the absolute level of the real exchange rate. Also the level of real exchange rate volatility (decreasing and increasing) also has a different effect on private consumption. The findings show that effect of positive and negative shocks of real exchange rate on the private sector consumption is symmetric in the short run but is asymmetric in the long run. Also, national income and inflation have a positive and negative effect on the consumption of the private sector, respectively. Therefore, the controlling the volatility of the real exchange rate rather than its absolute level targeting is the policy recommendation of this study for policy makers.