Journal of Economic Research and Policies
Year:2019 | Volume:27 | Issue:91|Papers Count:12

There are several reasons for using the unification of exchange rate policy, which is usually associated with the devaluation. The extent of these policies' influences on the economy is very extensive, especially when the economy is relying on single-product exports and has high foreign-exchange reserves. These policies affect the demand side of the economy through the exports and imports channel and the supply side through the cost of imported intermediary and capital goods. This study examines the effects of exchange rate unification on production, relative prices, exports and imports at macro level and the effects of feedback between sectors of the economy of Iran using the CGE model based on SAM 1390. The results based on two scenarios i. e., 25% and 35% increase in exchange rate indicates that the relative price index significantly will be increased by 21% and 30% in each scenario. Besides, the production growth will be increased by 1. 8% and 2. 6%, respectively. The same holds true about the sectors. The largest increase in production is related to the "mining" sector. However, the "hotel and restaurant" sector will face even a drop in production. Furthermore, the most inflationary burden will be experienced by the agricultural and related industries.

In recent years, a gap between banks’ deposits and loans has been emerging and rather continuously growing. Also, loans to liabilities ratio and liquidity multiplier have been decreased and increased, respectively. Furthermore, a kind of stickiness has been observed in interbank interest rate. The objective of this paper is to explain the mentioned behaviors by investigating the effects of nonperforming loans on banks’ balance sheets by taking account of creative accounting practices done by banks to hide losses. It will be argued that applying such practices by banks has led to disruption in banking money destruction as well as a rise in banking money creation through revenue detection on fictitious assets. These factors exacerbate banking sector fragility. For this purpose, a model is developed to explain the effects of fictitious assets on banks’ balance sheet. Based on this model, a method for estimation of the banking money creation is developed, as a proxy variable for fictitious assets, which is not through lending. Then, some evidences for exacerbation of banking sector fragility in recent years have been provided by investigation of this proxy variable using least squares model with breakpoints as well as another set of indicators during September 2004-May 2019.

In this paper, the hybrid modeling of Input-Output framework and MICMAC technique have been used to evaluates the inter-sectoral interactions between all sectors and activities of Iran’ s economy based on the statistics aggregate Input-Output tables for five periods from 1973 to 2011. The main 15 sectors are elaborated and the results of the interactions were used to extract sectoral priorities and to analyze the influence intensity and inter-sectoral interdependency. The results imply that the “ fishing and aquaculture “ sector has been autonomous in all the five periods and the “ industry” sector, as the most sensitive sector of Iran’ s economy, has been always a linkage sector so that the smallest changes in it, will lead to a chain effect changes in other sectors of the economy. Other sectors have various behavior during different periods. In other words, they have shown linkage, autonomous, dependent and independent nature. According to research policy results, policymakers can focus on industry sector with a linkage nature as a turning point related to backward linkages and forward linkages, in order to achieve development and extension of supply chain, and identify the more flexible sectors of Iran's economy in terms of structure according to MICMAC results, and plan to make structural changes to the Iranian economy.

An important factor affecting economic growth is the creation of an efficient financial system for financing high value-added activities. Accordingly, this study examined the relationship between cost efficiency and competition in Iran’ s banking industry using data of 18 state-owned and private banks over the period of 2006-2015. To do so, we used trans-log cost function to measure the cost efficiency of banks and the adjusted Lerner index to estimate competition. The result of Tobit model estimation indicates that, an increase in competition, credit concentration, size of bank, and reducing economic growth could increase cost inefficiency; also the result of generalized method of moments (GMM) shows that an increase in efficiency will decrease competition. Therefore, the efficient-structure and information generation hypothesis can be accepted in Iran’ s banking industry. Thus, it is essential to accurately monitor the entry of new banks by the central bank in order to improve the efficiency and performance of banking system in the field of credit and deposit interest rate.

Governments and firms in accordance to their duties, obliged to inevitably contracts with Individuals and legal entities, especially in auction and tender process. Since, the law of conducting tenders and auctions is lacking efficiency and has major objection, therefore, this has led to the dissemination and development of areas of corruption in these contracts (through collusion). In this paper, in order to eliminate collusion, the Nash equilibrium points have been obtained by designing a static game and solving it using game theory. The results show the maximum of the ceiling prices, As well as the minimum of floor prices at which the bidder chooses to eliminate collusion between the two tenderers. At last, it is recommended that the governments and bidding firms use the results of this research and neutralize collusion by setting ceiling and floor prices.

Land and urban housing have been affected by speculative demands due to heterogeneity, immobility and profitability, and have led to an increase of land and housing prices. The government, with the aim of controlling the housing market volatility, can play an important role in preventing the diversion of capital from the real sector to the housing sector and its multiple shocks. In this research, we discuss the effect of tax on real estate and housing on reduction of housing market volatility in urban areas of Iran during the period of 2011-2017, by using dynamic panel data model. The results indicate that increasing of tax rate on transfer of real estate and housing and mortgage facilities has led to a reduction in housing market volatility. Also, the raise of land prices’ growth rate, marriage growth rate and unofficial exchange rates growth rate have increased volatility of housing market.

According to modern development theories, creativity plays an important role in economic growth through shifting human capabilities to human feasibilities. In fact, the milestone of development is when human, human mind, its infinite power, and human capabilities came in to consideration. So, the objective of this research is to study the effect of global indicators of creativity on economic growth in two set of countries (developed and developing countries) during 1990-2016, by using factor analysis and spatial methods. The results of factor analysis indicate that there are three factors for creativity indicators in developing countries and two factors in developed countries. According to the results of spatial econometric method, both of the factors, the first (R&D expenditure, patent, high-technology exports and number of researchers in R&D) and the second factors (creative export and human capital) in developed countries have a positive effect on economic growth; also the results for developing countries show that all three of the first (R&D expenditure, patent and number of researchers in R&D), the second (high-technology exports and creative export) and the third factors (human capital), have a positive effect on economic growth

In this paper, the linkages between oil price changes, macroeconomic fluctuations and fragility of banks in Iran have been examined by taking account of some macroeconomic variables as well as bank-level variables of 11 Iranian banks from 1384 to 1396. For the empirical investigation, dynamic panel data models have been used. The models have been estimated by Generalized Method of Moments and Panel Vector Autoregressive. The results suggest that a low growth of oil price has been led to a decreasing growth rate of loans, which cause a relatively slower growth rate of non-performing loans ratio (NPL). However, in most oil-exporting countries, the reduction of oil price growth lead to an increase in NPL. On the other hand, non-oil GDP growth and stock index growth have negative relationship with NPL. There is also a negative feedback relationship between NPL and non-oil GDP growth. An unfavorable oil price and non-oil GDP growth shocks would lead to an increases in NPL. As a result, the negative effect of non-oil GDP growth, due to the increases in NPL (Fragility of Banks), has a negative effect on the real sector of economy.

In recent decades, the intervention of social capital in discourses and scientific documents in the fields of sociology, social sciences and economics have been increased. This focus on social capital is justified by its role which it plays in the production of human, economic and institutional capital. On the other hand, Education is the basic component of social cohesion, national identity and democratization. Educational institutions are not simply a transferor of human capital but they also pass on social capital in the form of social rules and norms. This study sought to prove the hypothesis that education leads to improvement of social capital. Therefore, in the first step, using the Fukuyama substitution method for social capital variables and using the OLS method for the time series data of Iran from 1983 to 2014, the effect of education on each of the selected variables of social capital was estimated. Then, in the next step, to illustrate the impact of education on social capital using principal component analysis (PCA) method, a composite index of variables selected for social capital was constructed and the impact of education on this index was estimated. The results in both sections confirm that education is a key element for improving social capital or reducing some social delinquency as a measure of social capital.

The agricultural sector is one of the most important economic sectors in Iran’ s economy which has a high share of gross national product. This sector has also a significant contribution to the country's employment and process of economic development. On the other hand, agricultural sector plays an important role in creating employment for villagers and it also prevent the acceleration of migration from rural areas to urban areas. Hence, identification of factors which affect labor demand in agricultural sector is of great importance. In order to investigate the effect of economic sanctions on employment of agricultural sector, first of all, we tried to use factor analysis method to create a new index for sanction to use in economic modeling. Then, the effects of economic sanctions on agricultural sector employment has been investigated using the simultaneous equation system method for the period of 1395-1355. According to the results, economic sanctions lead to increase in employment in agricultural sector.

The trade balance is one of the most important macroeconomic topics and one of the strategic macroeconomic constraints for developing countries. The exchange rate is recognized as one of the key factors affecting the trade balance of countries. Exchange rate fluctuations, which causes the fluctuations in relative prices, by destabilizing the economic conditions and increasing the inflation would lead to increase uncertainty in foreign trade market. Some of the consequences of uncertainty are the reduction of trade volume, foreign direct investment, and economic growth. In this study, a neo-Keynesian DSGE model for a small open economy is used to investigate the effect of exchange rate fluctuations on the trade balance of Iran. The success of the model in simulation is observable by studying the moments of the studied variables with the real data of Iran's economy. By estimating the parameters of the model using the Bayesian method during the period of 1990-2016, the results of simulation of the model variables indicate that the positive shock of exchange rate has led to an increase in oil and non-oil exports. Based on the results, foreign exchange shocks have led to improvement of exports and reduction in imports, on the other hand, it has led to improvements in the current account and capital account.

Hedging the risk of crude oil prices fluctuation for countries such as Iran that are highly dependent on oil export earnings is one of the important subject to discuss. In this regard, the main purpose of this study is to calculate and analyze the optimal dynamic hedging ratio for Iranian light and heavy crude oil spot prices based on one-month to four-month cross hedge contracts in New York Stock Exchange (NYMEX) futures using DCC-GARCH, CCC-GARCH, and BEKK-GARCH approaches. For estimation of the optimal dynamic hedge ratio, we use daily light and heavy crude oil spot prices and WTI futures from January 1985 to December 2017. We found that by using longer maturity contracts, the optimal hedge ratio for dynamic models will increase for both light and heavy crude oil spot prices. Also, by using various multivariate GARCH models and comparing them, we find that for Iranian light and heavy crude oil, the most reduction in portfolio risk is for one-month contracts by using BEKK-GARCH model; so we can reduce the risk of Iranian light and heavy crude oil price volatility by hedging the risk of one-month future contract, respectively up to 47/79 and 35/19 percent. The findings show the benefits of using future markets for hedging risk of crude oil price volatility for Iran after Removing the current financial barriers and restrictions caused by sanctions.