فصلنامه اقتصاد مقداری
سال یازدهم شماره 1 (پیاپی 40، بهار 1393)

Inequality distribution of income causes many problems in economic, social and political fields in a society. Governments regulate the redistribution of income through fiscal policy, such as taxes, subsidies and grants. Since taxes have a more fundamental role than other economic measures in adjusting the distribution of income and wealth in a society, this study attempts to present a prioritization for the taxation in economic sectors in order to reduce income inequalities. Therefore, using the 2001 Social Accounting Matrix approach and IO-SAM and MATS software, the consequences of increase in tax rates were examined for each economic sector. Moreover, the total effects were divided into direct and indirect effects. The results indicate that increasing tax rates in sections like motor vehicles, air transport services, fuel, posts, telecommunications and support services increases the cost of living index less for low-income households, so they can pay more taxes in these sectors. On the other hand, due to the high consumption of low-income households of the electricity, kerosene, flour, animal and vegetable oils, meat, dairy products, road transportation services, and tea, the cost of living index would increase if the tax rate increases in such sectors. Therefore, it is better that these sectors pay fewer taxes than others.

In the recent decades both financial crises and the environmental changes especially global warming have been of the major issues of the current world. Plenty of studies have concentrated on this issue and thus, various models, including E3 ones, have been suggested to examine the relationship between economy, environment and energy. In this paper, we have analyzed the E3 models using Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) for the period of 1974-2013. The results show that the energy consumption and environmental pollution have positive and significant impact on economic growth. Furthermore, the impact of economic growth on energy consumption is positive and significant. Finally, energy consumption and economic growth have positive and significant effect on the environmental pollution in Iran.

The objective of this study is economic valuation of the use-value of Shadegan Wetland. Market pricing which is a method based on the supply side was used to valuate direct use values of the wetland. Also, to valuate indirect use and option values, choice experiment method was used, a method that is based on the demand side. Necessary data were obtained from questionnaires filled in villages in the vicinity of the wetland and also some of the cities of the Khuzestan province in 2014. Furthermore, data on the potential uses of the wetland were gathered from some cities outside of the province. In addition to estimating the indirect use and option values using Logit models, this study sought to estimate willingness to pay for each of these uses. According to the obtained results, the annual value of the direct, indirect and potential uses of the wetland were 37478, 1347 and 4755 billion Rials; it follows that the total economic value per annum of the uses of the wetland amounted to 43580 billion Rials which is equivalent to $1,894,782,608 based on an exchange rate of 23000 Rials for one Dollar. Based on the findings of the present study, the economic use value of international wetland of Shadegan is quite significant and people residing in the vicinity of the wetland welcome government’s protective programs and are willing to conserve the wetland. Hence, not only should be revised the hitherto trend towards protection of the wetland but also measures should be taken to improve qualitatively the status of its attributes. Based on the results of this study, it is recommended that more training programs are held to introduce the Shadegan wetland and that results of scientific research are used to increase public awareness about the economic value of Shadegan wetland.

The purpose of this research is to assess the effects of monetary policy on Iran’s macroeconomic variables. To do that, using the Factor Augmented Vector Auto-Regressive (FAVAR) approach which contains 110 quarterly variables of macroeconomic from1990:2-2013:1, monetary policies in Iran were evaluated. We used liquidity, monetary base, bank debt and bank credit in the private sector as a monetary tool for measuring the monetary policy regarding the implementation of Riba-free Banking law in Iran. The results show that the impact of monetary policy on output is not clear in the short term. However, the monetary neutrality can be accepted in the long term. Moreover, an expansionary monetary policy has a stability effect on the general price level in the short and long term. Comparing the results of VAR model and FAVAR models and using the FAVAR model shows that there is no “Price Puzzle” in the economy of Iran.

Research on environment is a very important task for the process of sustainable development. Although economic growth is one of the most important aims of many governments, rapid economic growth normally suffers environment severely. Thus there is a potential contrast between economic policies and environmental situation. Moreover, the sanctions affect environment issues due to institutional and technical reasons. Thus, in this paper the causality among Economic sanctions, Macroeconomic factors and environmental polluters has been examined using Hsiao causality approach. To do this, the CO2, CH4, and NOx gases as the main polluters variables and value-added of industry, mine, oil sectors and non-oil GDP as the main macroeconomic variables have been used. The results show that there is a significant unidirectional causality from economic sanctions to macroeconomic variables. Moreover, there is a unidirectional causality from economic sanctions to polluter gases. Thus, removing economic sanctions can result in decreasing environmental pollution, on the one hand, and increasing GDP, on the other, in Iran.

One of the most fundamental questions of the public finance and policy makers is to select a proper tax basis. Great importance is thus attached to the tax structure due to its effects on the economic growth and saving. In this study, taxation reform has been taken into account from the macroeconomics and welfare perspectives. The proposed model in the present work is a dynamic overlapping generations computable general equilibrium (OLG-CGE) model, which has been designed based on the frameworks used by Auerbach & Kotlikoff (1987) and Rasmussen & Rutherford (2001). Besides, this model has been modified in terms of the Iranian economic framework. Simulation results of the dynamic research model with respect to our defined scenarios show that, wage tax and capital income tax generally have a negative effect on the economic growth and investment parameters. The wage tax exerts a larger effect than the capital income tax on the aforesaid parameters. For evaluation of the welfare effects of the tax reform, Hicks criterion for compensating variation (CV) has been used. Welfare analysis of the tax reform indicates the positive effects of the wage tax and capital income tax on the household welfare.