THE JOURNAL OF PLANNING AND BUDGETING
Year:2018 | Volume:23 | Issue:2|Papers Count:6

Do similarities in trade patterns of GCC countries (UAE, KSA, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman), which are geographically and politically alike and also enjoy oil income, affect the synchronization of their business cycles and make them have similar booms and busts? In this paper, we attempt to connect these two features and explore this question. Using various estimation methods (Common Correlated Effect Estimation, OLS, and GSL) and the data for these 6 countries from 1980-2012, we show that the trade patterns of the countries have a significant and positive effect on the synchronization of their business cycles. Knowing such Business Cycle Synchronization among countries and exploring its effective factors can be helpful for policymakers in making decisions.

Wheat is a strategic commodity, and so its distribution system is always one of the major issues facing countries. The cost of wheat distribution and storage and the differences in the nutrient content of different wheats, have caused complicated problems in the wheat supply chain. In addition to controlling distribution costs, it could enhance the quality of wheat through blending different kinds of wheat in several areas. This research attempts to describe this problem by using a complex integer optimization model. This problem, in terms of complexity, is considered as a NP-hard problem, and for this reason, an Adaptive Large Neighborhood Search is proposed to solve it. The analysis of the solutions shows that the synchronization of the blending and routing problems will improve the overall optimal point. Also, to evaluate the quality of the proposed algorithm's solutions, the algorithm's results are compared with the exact algorithm's answers; the results indicate the proper performance of the proposed algorithm.

Promoting Total Factor Productivity (TFP) is one of the methods to improve the competitiveness in the mining sector. Even so, it is of great importance to find a practical solution for productivity improvement. In this study, value added was measured by an innovative method based on the Divisia quantity index for seven mineral activities for the period 1994-2016. The results of calculating TFP by Tornquist approximation of Divisia index show that the annual average of TFP growth was 2. 6% over the period; Also, 29. 2% of total value added growth stems from TFP growth. The highest share of TFP growth in increasing value added pertains to coal mining activity with 33. 6%, and the growth of the production of mineral chemicals activity has been achieved only through increased usage of resources. Subsequently, the impact rate of human capital and R&D on TFP growth was measured by using the method of generalized method of moments (GMM) for panel data. The results of the estimation model by panel data method indicate that the graduated employees as representatives of human capital, R&D capital, and mining activity scale have a positive and significant effect on the TFP. However, R&D capital and human capital have minimum impact on TFP growth.

In this research, we attempt to investigate the effect of economic boom and recession on environmental pollution in Iran through an asymmetric approach. To this end, an autoregressive approach with nonlinear distributive pause was used with the data for the period (1971-2017) to explain and describe the asymmetry; Accordingly, a basic model (for the entire economy) and three partial patterns (for household, commercial and public sector, industrial sector, as well as transportation sector) have been estimated. The results indicate that in the short run and the long run, the economic boom and recession have a direct impact on carbon dioxide emissions. That is to say, as GDP increases (the economic boom), with the expansion of activities in all aforementioned economic sectors, increased usage of resources leads to the surge of pollution emissions. On the other hand, during the economic recession, which is accompanied by reduction in activities in sectors such as the industrial sector (as one of the most energy-consum-ing sectors in the economy of Iran), the emission of pollutants is reduced. In addition, the presence of asymmetry in the effects of the production on environmental pollutant emissions are also confirmed. As a result, in the long-run, both in the overall economy as well as in the three sectors examined, the elasticity of pollutant emissions to production, is larger than the one during the economic boom, whereas it is less than the one during the economic recession. Therefore, the results suggest that legislators and economic policymakers pay special attention to improving the price of energy carriers in order to make energy usage more efficient.

Economic reforms require a comprehensive and detailed strategy to specify when and how policy reforms should be applied. Since economic reforms are comprised of different measures such as price liberalization, privatization, trade and foreign currency reform, restructuring of enterprises and etc., the sequence of these policies should be specified, and must be determined how fast each of these policies should be followed. Unfortunately, lack of statistical evidence has hindered a strong evidence-based analysis. In this research, the indicators of economic reforms, provided by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in 8 sectors and 29 transition economies over 24 years, have been analyzed through a panel data model with EGLS method. As for the sequence of policies, it is determined that the price liberalization and the small enterprises’ privatization (rather than large ones) are the most important parts of the economic reforms to achieve economic growth. However, as for the speed of adjustments, the results indicate that speeding up price liberalization and privatization lead to slow economic growth, whereas accelerating the reforms in trade and foreign exchange policies, and also stepping up the restructuring of firms, promote economic growth.

This research aims to provide a performance-based budgeting model in the social security organization which has independent and similar departments across the country. The statistical population of this research is the Social Security Organization Insurance's department. Following the library reviews and adapted from the performance indicators of the subcommittee of the insurance company's deputy, 38 functional indicators have been identified for the departments of the provinces and their respective branches. Then, the associated information regarding these indicators, extracted from the Statistical Yearbook of Economic and Organizational Planning, have been weighted by using Shannon's entropy method. Hence, based on real data of 2017 and on the basis of the province's degree of availability and regional equilibrium, the model is formulated. The results of applying the proposed model and comparing it with the current organization show that the organization's current method in budget allocation is not optimal.