مسعود نیلی

This paper examines the potential of government fiscal support in mitigating the consequences of shocks, particularly in relation to the infection rate of contagious diseases. The focus is on the emergence of Covid-19 and the various interventions implemented by governments to combat it. The study utilizes a cross-country analysis, using a dataset that includes government fiscal measures, infection rates, and selected institutional and economic metrics from different countries. To isolate the effects of vaccinations, the analysis is specifically focused on the year 2020. The findings indicate that a one percentage point increase in the ratio of direct government spending to GDP corresponds to an approximate 0.08 percentage point reduction in the confirmed infection rate. Given the average infection rate of 1.6 percent in 2020, this translates to a significant 5 percent decrease in infection rates. Additionally, the study reveals that the effectiveness of fiscal support measures is influenced by the institutional quality of the countries. Higher institutional quality is associated with greater effectiveness of fiscal support measures in reducing the infection rate. Furthermore, the study highlights that the impact of government spending on reducing the infection rate is enhanced when accompanied by the implementation of governmental rules.

Is the type of political regime effective in shaping the resources curse &weakening the performance of economic governance? By formulating an analytical framework &presenting empirical results, it is shown that the presence of natural resources in democratic regimes has not had a negative effect. Rather, the quality of democracy has been a determining factor in the formation of economic governance. In contrast, the presence of natural resources in centralized dictatorships has had a negative effect on the quality of economic governance. But such an effect is not seen in decentralized dictatorships where political power is divided among members of the ruling group. The results show that in addition to the type of political regime, the type of natural resource is also effective in the formation of the resources curse. Sensitivity analysis indicates the stability of the results to the dependent variable change, the addition of control variables, &the sample change.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of political regime types, including democracy and dictatorship, on the quality of economic institutions as the main variables in the formation of the economic growth process. The political power is distributed among a wide range of interest groups in mature democracies, while it is concentrated in the hands of the elected executive in initial democracies in a way that other groups are unable to participate in political power. In initial dictatorships, the political power is vested in one individual as well, but in mature dictatorships, it is divided among the members of the ruling group and the leader is limited in removing other members of the ruling coalition. The empirical results indicate that the economic institutions enjoy better quality in mature democracies and dictatorships compared to the initial democracies and dictatorships. Moreover, the economic institutions’ quality in mature dictatorships and democracies is not significantly different. The mature dictatorships have better protection of property rights compared to the initial democracies, despite the fact that they lack free elections. The results are robust to change the dependent variable, control variables, the sample, and using the instrumental variable approach.

The purpose of this article is to examine the effect of political power on rule of law as a basis for economic development. Political power consists of two key components: power transition and power distribution. Power might be centralized in the hands of a small group or distributed among different groups. Power transition is also distinguished by democratic or non-democratic power. In the present study, the application of descriptive-analytical approach provides evidence that centralized political power leads to the violation of citizens’ rights by the politicians. Conversely, decentralized political power restricts the politicians and consequently, prevents the violation of legal rights. Then, the application of an empirical approach and the analysis of 102 countries’ data reveal that intensification in political power concentration will reduce the rule of law quality. In addition, the results indicate that controlling the power distribution effect will remarkably reduce the power transition’s effect on the quality of rule of law. Sensitivity analysis also demonstrates the results’ stability after changing the dependent variable, adding other control variables and using the instrumental variable method.

Since the beginning of the 2010s, the investment in Iran has experienced a continuous and severe fall and the level of the total real investment at the end of 2018 has approximately reached its 2002 level. In this paper, we show that the fluctuation of the investment (in machinery) up to the beginning of 2010s can be explained by the use of a regression model which includes macroeconomic variables as well as measures of instability in macro environment. However, this model is not able to predict the investment drop during the 2010s and it seems that other factors play a crucial role in the severe fall of the investment in this decade. We will introduce “Political Conflicts” and “Economic Policy Uncertainty” as two indices which are constructed by applying the text analysis method to the press and digital media from 2002 to 2019. The trend of these two indices show a high degree of uncertainty during the recent decade. We will show that the “Political Conflicts” index can explain the investment drop in the 2010s.

The main question of this study is: Why is the economic performance of some dictatorships such as Middle East monarchies, better than that of some democracies such as Latin American republics? In this paper, by adopting a descriptive-analytical approach and using historical observations, it has been argued that economic institutions historically influenced by political institutions. Political institutions form the two key components of any political regime, including power transition and power distribution. In this paper, based on historical observations, we show that the concentration of power on the Shah in Pahlavi Iran has led to rentseeking policies. The high concentration of the Shah's power prevented any political competition over efficiency and accountability, and had expanded his interference in the economic and political issues, such as military purchases, bank licensing, and ownership of large economic and industrial enterprises. Therefore, the property rights of economic activists independent of the Shah's power were not legally protected by economic institutions, and the protection or violation of property rights was exercised arbitrarily by the Shah. In contrast, the distribution of power among the ruling group in dictatorships such as Oman, Qatar and other family monarchies in Middle East led to the formation of efficient economic institutions. Because the king's power to deprive other members’ property is limited, and they are able to set up private enterprises to gain benefits. Finally, statistical analysis confirms the results obtained from historical observations and indicate that distribution of power has major role on the formation of economic institutions.

From 1384 to 1395, Iran's labor market experienced two puzzling behaviors in the total number of employees, which we call: “puzzles of jobless growth (1384-1390) and growthless employment (1391-1395)". These two puzzles cannot be explained by focusing only on the net changes in the total number of employees. Alternatively, we need to focus on the dynamic labor market indicators. For this purpose, we estimated the labor flow rates for these two periods. Our results indicate that the sharp increase in the total number of employees between 1391 and 1395 was correlated with a sharp reduction in the separation rate and, contrary to expectation, the hire rate did not increase. We also found that, in the second period, workers became more stable in their current activity status in comparison to the first period.

The weak economic performance of resource-rich countries results in the economic studies’ great concentration on the role of institutions in resource curse literature and employment of theoretical or empirical approaches to determine the cause of this phenomenon . In this paper, we argue that the two independent variables of political institutions and natural resources influence the economic institutions which are endogenous variables; by applying a descriptive-analytical approach and making distinction between function of “economic institutions” and “political institutions” . Political institutions form the political power structure to specify the elites’ scope of power in the establishment of favorable economic institutions, which aim at distributing the resources among the affiliated groups . We also use the empirical approach to show that natural resources do not have any significant effect on the quality of economic institutions by controlling the effect of political institutions . In contrast, the better quality of political institutions results in the better quality of economic institutions .

With the physical and social development of cities and their becoming heterogeneous demographic, social and cultural centers, increasing the number of urban anomalies, especially in the central regions, as well as increasing demographic and social heterogeneity and economic poverty, the causes of urban damage and outbreak growth. And unbridled abnormalities in the city. Deaths and criminal behavior are considered as one of the important issues of Iranian society. Social capital, as a very important factor in the emergence and prevention of crime and criminal behavior, can help us to explain crime and criminal behavior.

Based on the theoretical framework based on Bourdieu and Pathnam's theories and previous studies, seven hypotheses were designed. To test the hypotheses, a sample of 380 youths of 2918 Boushehri years have been selected by multi-stage random sampling method from all regions of Bushehr. Sample size is based on Morgan's table.

Discussion of Results and Conclusions:

The results of analysis of bivariate techniques show that there is a significant difference between the sexes regarding the incidence of criminal behavior. Also, there is a significant relationship between parental occupational classes in terms of the criminal behavior of young people. The results of the multivariate regression technique showed that 5 variables of satisfaction and intimacy in the neighborhood, participation in crime prevention in the neighborhood, social network, social trust, father's education and mother education in total could explain 32 percent of the changes in the behavior of the criminal youth.