Economic and Planning Research
Year:2020 | Volume:25 | Issue:2|Papers Count:6

The Political business cycle theory is one of the controversial topics in modern economic theory. The political business cycle, as a political factor, influences the trends of economic variables. According to economic theories, the economic policy adopted by government before election, is an expansionary one, leading to lower taxes and unemployment; it also increases consumption per capita, GDP, and the subsidies granted by the government. However, after each election, the government adopts a restrictive policy. This paper introduces the major models used to describe and analyze political and economic cycles. Moreover, Iran's political cycles and their impact on economic development are analyzed based on the BVAR model for the period 1979-2015. According to the analysis, it is concluded that the economic variables, particularly inflation and exchange rate, are under the influence of political decisions, specifically during the election period.

An accurate, and time-based poverty measurement is crucial in future policymaking as well as assessing the impact of welfare policies implemented on poverty. This study has used Multidimensional Poverty Index to calculate the various dimensions of poverty as well as the trend of changes in this index for the whole country and to compare its trend from 2006 to 2018 in all provinces of Iran in both urban and rural areas. These insights provide more accurate images of the location and dimensions of poverty, and they help to illuminate the path for future research on the causes of poverty, and also to design and target the supportive policies more effectively. The results of this paper show that multidimensional poverty in rural and suburban areas is higher than the urban areas, yet it shows slightly decreasing poverty trend. The policy message of this study necessitates a major focus on poverty alleviation in rural and suburban areas.

Public transportation and bus route management is a ser�-ious challenge for any city, and its efficiency is an important problem for cities and transport agencies. Routing of public transport systems is also a very complex issue that affects not only the performance efficiency and the construction or operation costs, but also the performance indicators such as passenger transport, travel speed, and savings in travel time. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is an optimization-based method that is widely used to measure the relative performance efficiency of public transportation systems. This paper attempts to evaluate the performance of bus routes in a public transportation system using the two-stage DEA model. A conceptual framework for performance appraisal is presented and appropriate input and output indicators are selected to calculate the performance efficiency and service efficiency of each route. The performance of the achievement (model) is then analyzed and the bus routes that need to be reconfigured and optimized are identified. Ten bus routes in Tehran have been selected for practical applications.

The highly-educated labor force unemployment rate rapidly overtook the unemployment rate of the less-educated workers for the last two decades. This paper focuses on the factors which affect labor demand considering the level of education using the data from 1986 to 2017. Results based on the Multiple-Equation Generalized Method of Moments estimator demonstrate that non-oil GDP, relative wages, capital-labor ratio, and labor costs– capital costs ratio have a significant impact on labor demand in terms of education level. Also, it is demonstrated that the highlyeducated labor force can adjust to its desired level at a slower pace than the less educated workforce. Furthermore, it is denoted that non-oil GDP affects labor demand in a positive and significant way with more impact on the workers with higher education. Other findings indicate that in Iran’ s labor market, highly-educated labor force and workers without college/ university degree are substitutes, hence policies like wage subsidies and employer insurance exemption for employing higher education graduates can stimulate labor demand for a highly-educated workforce in a positive and significant manner. On the other hand, as it is found that labor and capital are substitutes, policies that make labor costlier than capital may result in employment reduction. Finally, the technological progress that arises from increases in capital per capita has a positive and significant effect on the labor force with higher education, but it influences less-educated labor employment negatively and significantly.

The health sector and the funds allocated to it, due to its impact on the strengthening of the human capital through productivity, play an important role in the economic growth and human development of countries. If these credits are not allocated optimally, especially in the form of capital asset acquisition, it will make the health sector unable to provide optimal health care services. In this regard, the purpose of the present article is to provide a model for allocating the funds for the acquisition of capital assets of the health sector in Khorasan Razavi to the cities of this province. To this end, a multi-criteria decision-making method has been used on the basis of satisfaction and statistics and information related to credits and indicators of the health sector of Khorasan Razavi province with emphasis on deprived and less developed areas. The findings of this study indicate the highest optimal share for the cities of Mashhad, Binalood, and Zaveh and the lowest optimal share for the city of Gonabad from the total credits related to the acquisition of capital assets of the health sector of Khorasan Razavi.

The purpose of this study is to explain the Systemic Risk Model with Marginal Expected Shortfall Approach (MES) as regards the banks listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange. The research population includes 15 banks that were present in Tehran Stock Exchange or Iran’ s Over-The-Counter (OTC) for the period 2013 to 2018. Data analysis showed that according to the MES criterion, systemic risk has been declining in the period under review. However, the developments of this index can be divided into two sub-periods 2013-2015 and 2016-2018. In the first period (2013-2015), the level of systemic risk based on this criterion was significantly higher than the level of systemic risk in the second period (2016-2018); Nonetheless, over the time, in the second sub-period, on average, the values amounted to about half of what they were in the first-period level.