Journal of Economic Studies and Policies
Year:2018 | Volume:14 | Issue:1 (109)|Papers Count:6

The oil price shocks are one of the main sources of economic fluctuations in oil producing countries. The role of oil shocks as factors in economic growth of a country is important. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of oil price shocks on business cycle in Iran by using a Markov Switching approach during the seasonal period of 1988(2)_2014(4). The results of Markov Switching model indicate that oil price fluctuations has had a positive impact on business cycle during the boom period and it has had a negative impact on business cycle during recission period and the stability of the two regimes is roughly equal and close together. The results also show that Iran's economy has experienced 52 recession seasons and 50 seasons of boom in the period under consideration that, on average, we can say the length of the recession and the boom was equal.

This paper examines the own price and substitution elasticity of the labor force demand for small and medium scale firms in Iran's provinces. In this study, for estimation, the Fractional Panel Probit technique has been employed for the period of time from 2004 to 2014 and at the provincial level. The result of estimation for both groups shows a negative relationship between wage and labor demand that is consistent with labor demand theory. There is a positive effect for output-employment elasticity. The other result shows Cross elasticity of capital price and labor demand reveals a substitution effect in small firms. The demand for labor is reduced by increasing in taxes and value of raw materials. As Iran’ s labor market is suffering from labor demand shortage and high unemployment, it is suggested that the economic policymaker should eliminate production barriers, care about increasing production capacity and facilitate the supply of raw materials.

High economic growth has been one of the main goals of policymakers. In addition to this goal, the stability of economic growth is also important, because its stability can help policymakers in planning for the future. Special attention has been paid to trade as a factor for economic growth and development, while its effects on the fluctuations of economic growth have been less studied. The positive or negative impact of trade openness on the fluctuations of economic growth can be strongly influenced by the country's trade structure and its export diversification. The present paper examines the role of export diversification on economic growth fluctuations and its impact on the relationship between trade openness and economic growth fluctuations during the period of 1984-2015. The results of this study show that the greater degree of trade openness, increases the economic growth fluctuations due to the transfer of external shocks to the economy. But the diversification of exports, both directly and through the trade openness, helps to reduce the economic growth fluctuations.

The purpose of the study is the simultaneous effect of good governance and governmental expenditures’ elements on economic growth in the MENA countries. To estimate the pattern, the generalized method of moment (GMM) was used from 2002 to 2017. The results show that good governance (weighted average of six indicators) and governmental expenditures have a good and significant effect on economic growth. The effect of variables of gross national product (GNP) in the past times and opening of business is positive and significant on economic growth. Economic affairs and public affairs expenditures have a negative and significant effect on economic growth. The effect of the social expenditure variable is positive and significant on economic growth. Good governance index, which is derived from the combination of six existing indicators by main component analysis, is estimated in another model, which indicates a positive relationship with more impact on economic growth.

The purpose is to investigate possibility of hedging the risk of exchange rate fluctuations by entrancing to the gold futures market and comparing the risk hedge in Tehran Exchange Stock with the Chicago Exchange stock. In order to that, daily data from December 13, 2007 to April 30, 2018 was used for Iran and United States and the Markov-Switching Model were used. The results showed that the coefficient of the futures price index of gold coins for zero regime was 0/0013, which indicates that for the coverage of the risk, for each currency contract, the order of 0/0013 units of the gold coin contract should be purchased. For regime one, the coefficient, was 0/0046, which indicates that to cover the risk of risk price dollar, we should buy 0/0046 units of the gold coin contract. The results of this study showed that the coefficient for future changes in gold prices for the Chicago Exchange was 0/0011. For regime one, the coefficient of future price changes of gold was 0/0008.

In this study, the mutual relationship between real exchange rate volatility and remittances has been investigated and empirically analyzed by the use of Moving Average Standard Deviation (MASD) of monthly real exchange rate and panel data method within the framework of three stage least square (3SLS) of simultaneous equations system in the Islamic developing countries (D8) over the period 2005-2016. The results demonstrate that there is a mutual relationship between the real exchange rate volatility and remittances. In the meanwhile, the exchange rate volatility has a greater and significant effect on remittances; while their reverse effect is small. In other words, the remittances inflows don’ t have a significant effect on the real exchange rate volatility, which leads to economic stability. In addition, foreign direct investment, government expenditures, terms of trade and trade openness cause volatilities in real exchange rates, and on the other side, GDP per capita, financial development, household expenditure per capita, age dependency and differential interest rate are the influential factors of remittances inflow in the studied countries.