Investigation the Effect of Business Cycle on the Index of Economic Well-being in Iran

In any society, government officials and policymakers must take well-being into consideration as it is one of the main indicators of development and also a key element of social growth and development. Evaluating economic well-being during successive, inevitable periods of boom and recession helps evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of policies and aids economic policymakers in making better decisions. This study aimed to investigate the effects of business cycles on economic well-being index in Iran for the 1980-2016 period.  To measure well-being, the Osberg index of economic well-being was used and each component fit was assigned a weight using the Delphi method. Then, in a model suited for Iranian economy, the impact of business cycles was estimated using a gravitational search algorithm. The findings of the Delphi method indicate that economic security component has the highest weight among the four components of this index. Model evaluation revealed that business cycles are directly related to the economic well-being index, indicating that the boom and recession periods of business cycles have respectively led to the improvement and decline of economic well-being index in Iran.