THE JOURNAL OF PLANNING AND BUDGETING
Year:2020 | Volume:25 | Issue:3|Papers Count:6

The budgeting control system is one of the most important management control systems. The relation between budget and management control mechanism underlies the concept of budgetary slack, which is expressed as a consequence of strict budgeting or lack of budget monitoring. Since budgetary slack plays an important role in the organization’ s budget performance, the aim of this study is to review the concepts, functions, and definitions of this topic, and to provide a comprehensive framework for controlling budgetary slack in governmental agencies via strategic management accounting. Using library studies, the comprehensive strategic framework presented consists of three main parts: (1): general structures affecting the process of governmental budgetary slack, (2): budgeting process, and (3): budget implementation process. The important components of these parts imply that by creating a strategic management accounting system, a precise management control system can be designed to set a budget goal that help control the behavior of managers participating in strategic budgeting and planning. The importance of this framework is that it demonstrates how government can reduce the negative consequences of the budgetary slack and, consequently, increase its budgeting efficiency by adopting an integrated management accounting system.

Financial technology is the design and delivery of financial products and services through technology, and it is of great importance for industries and business development. The aim of this study is to identify the future of financial technology in Iran through the lens of scenario planning. For data analysis, the Binominal test and EDAS were used. Initially, 15 key drivers were extracted from a systematic review of the literature and interviews with experts. The number of experts in this study was 30 people who answered the questionnaires and expressed their views on the importance of factors in terms of the Likert scale. At this stage, 5 factors were excluded due to the significance coefficient. After screening the unimportant key factors, the key factors were assessed by experts using EDAS, and two drivers of the integration of financial technology laws and standards, and the ease of international exchanges manifested as the top priorities for experts. Based on these two drivers, four scenarios for the future of financial technology in Iran can be identified: the paradise of financial technology, the world of persecution, the abandoned island, and the hell of financial technology. Obviously, the financial technology paradise is the most desirable scenario, and the financial technology hell describes the worst.

Energy demand modeling, from estimation and methodology points of view, is one of the main challenging issues among energy experts. This study attempts to identify the gaps and differences in energy demand modeling literature. More specifically the study concentrates on the properties of two approaches: "single equation" and "demand system" that commonly used in this area. Our review indicates that the single-equation approach, despite its simplicity in estimating parameters, suffers from severe problems, such as endogeneity and instability in parameters. However, the serious problem with this approach is that its specification has not been supported by rigorous microeconomic theory. On the other hand, the energy demand system model is explicitly derived from the microeconomic theory that makes it possible to derive own-and cross-price elasticities of energy fuels and to consider interfuel substitution. However, the severe problem of this approach is that the demand elasticity estimates are more sensitive to selecting functional specifications. We investigate and compare the properties of the two common functional forms in energy demand system namely, translog and linear logit model. Our review indicate that the linear logit model, under theoretical regularity conditions, can provide more convenient estimates of demand elasticities compared to translog functional form.

The sum of inflation and unemployment rates is called the misery index, and its escalation can be associated with many social and economic costs such as increased crime, reduced social security, and harm to the mental health of the society. The present study investigates the effect of knowledge-based economy components on the misery index in two groups of selected countries via the approach of panel data and generalized moment method at the level of pre-innovation-driven stage and innovation-driven stage for the period 2008-2018. The results showed the effect of all components of the knowledge-based economy (including economic incentives and institutional regime, innovation system, training and development of human resources and ICT infrastructure) with different estimated coefficients and at different levels of confidence was negative and significant on economic misery in both groups of selected countries. In addition, the effect of control variables, including population and abundance of natural resources, on the misery index in the pre-innovation-driven stage in the selected countries is positive and significant; yet it is not significant in the innovation-driven stage. Also, the effect of economic openness on the misery index in both groups of selected countries was negative and significant.

Can a historical shock such as Iran's occupation in world war two and the resulting famine affect people's health up to the age of 70? In this study, we do a natural experiment during the allied occupation interval in Iran. First, we documented the most challenging period of this shock based on historical evidence. Then we compare people who were prenatally exposed to this period with those who were born in similar periods immediately before and immediately after. To find the causal effect, we use various fixed effects and controls in the comparisons. The study results show that those whose in-utero period overlapped with this shock's most severe period are, on average, about 1. 1 cm shorter than the two groups before and after them. These results are significant and robust and adding control variables, fixed effects, and small changes at the beginning and end of the period do not significantly change the results. Our results also indicate that the fetal period had a more significant impact on height than the first two years of life. This research contains a policy message for pregnant mothers, and health and welfare policymakers.

The main purpose of this article is to evaluate the productivity and efficiency in meadow mushroom cultivation industry. To achieve this goal, by using the growth of total factors productivity in meadow mushroom farms in the six selected (Fars, Qazvin, Tehran, Alborz, Khorasan Razavi and Esfahan) provinces this has been calculated using the Malmquist index and data envelopment analysis (DEA) method for the period 2008-2018. By dividing the index into two effects of change in technology and change in technical efficiency, this study evaluates the total productivity of production factors. Moreover, this study attempts to evaluate the progress and recession rates of productivity. The results indicated that Isfahan province has the highest productivity of 15. 8% Per year (positive growth) and Alborz province was facing a decrease in productivity of 1. 6% per year (negative growth). On the other hand, the ratio of technological changes to productivity was more than the ratio of efficiency to productivity. So, to increase meadow mushroom productivity, it is necessary to improve technical efficiency and scale efficiency. In order to achieve these important goals, the present study provides some executive and research suggestions.