seyed mohammadjavad razmi

This study examines textual data's ability to nowcast Iran's gross domestic product (GDP). To this end, 301,498 economic news articles from March 2005 to December 2023 were extracted from the Fars news agency website using a web crawling technique. Following initial preprocessing, the news texts were sorted into various categories via the Dirichlet Latent Allocation (LDA) model, wherein each category corresponds to a distinct news topic. Subsequently, to ascertain whether an article conveys a positive or negative sentiment, we executed lexicon-based sentiment analysis utilizing SentiStrength. Ultimately, by aggregating the news sentiment scores seasonally under each topic, we constructed a seasonal sentiment time series. These time series were then assessed for their efficacy in nowcasting Iran's quarterly GDP, employing ridge regression, lasso regression, elastic net, and gradient boosting methods. The findings reveal that incorporating textual data can reduce prediction errors by 12 to 18 percent relative to a univariate time series model. Moreover, our results suggest that sentiment extracted from textual content, particularly news articles, is a viable approach. This strategy could potentially enable the provision of immediate GDP estimates following the end of each reference quarter.

Income inequality is one of the most important and stable problems in societies, and neglecting this issue can have many negative effects. Nowadays, financial inclusion as a factor affecting income inequality has attracted the attention of financial institutions and policymakers. The literature related to financial inclusion, especially in developing countries, is still in the early stages. This research investigates the effect of financial inclusion on income inequality in 18 selected developing countries in the period of 2005-2019 using panel data model. Since financial inclusion is a multi-dimensional concept with different indicators in each dimension, this study examines the two dimensions of access and usage separately. Also, the effect of the variables including inflation, economic growth, unemployment and trade openness has been investigated. The results indicate that financial inclusion has a negative and significant effect on income inequality both in terms of access and usage, and expanding financial inclusion helps to reduce income inequality. In both dimensions inflation has a negative effect on income inequality and show that the increase of this variable causes income inequality to decrease. The coefficients of the GDP, unemployment and trade openness are positive and this shows that the increase of each of these variables increases inequality.

Risk is one of the most fundamental issues in economics, especially Islamic economics, which has a fundamental impact on many issues of micro and macro economics. Although some research works have paid attention to this issue, but among the works of Sunnis, only the work of Awadiyah (2010) has addressed this issue as a comprehensive theory and barrier. In this article, we will answer the question whether in Islamic economics, according to the evidence in Shiite jurisprudence, the entitlement to profit in any kind of economic activity is subject to acceptance, using the book of Awizah and using the method of discovery attributed to Martyr Sadr. Risk from factors associated with that activity? For this purpose, first we provide a brief conceptual explanation of the theory of risk and then, in the form of defining the purpose, elements, contents and conditions of the theory and its criteria, we have explained the position of this theory in Islamic economics. In the following, we have examined the rational reasons (combination of truth and duty) and narration (6 reasons from Quranic verses and 3 hadiths from hadiths quoted in Shiite and Sunni sources as well as other confirmations of jurisprudential rules) in Sunni and Shiite sources. In the end, we have come to the conclusion that by accepting the concept of this theory, a genuine criterion can be achieved for examining new issues affecting society.

Mutual funds are expanding as one of the financial intermediaries. But the presence of asymmetric information in financial markets and the possibility of encouraging fund managers to make risky selections can jeopardize the interests of investors. Financial supervision by controlling the riskiness of funds is one of the ways to support investors. In this paper, the effects of financial supervision components on the risk of 18 Equity mutual funds in Iran during the period 2010-2019 are examined. According to the nature of the dependent variable, the credit risk of the mutual funds, model estimation and data analysis has been done by a Panel Quantile Regression Approach. The results show that the four components of profitability, liquidity quality, asset quality and market risk sensitivity as components of financial supervision have a negative and significant effect on the risk of low and high risk quantile funds. Also, the effect of two components of management quality and sensitivity to market risks on the risk of the middle risk quantile has been negative and significant. Therefore, the regulator of these funds should follow the formulation and implementation of regulatory rules based on financial solvency with emphasis on these components, especially in high risk quantile funds, in order to further protect the interests of investors.

Among the factors affecting labor productivity, the shortage in food intake can seriously affect productivity. The purpose of this study is to examine the Poverty Nutrition Trap, which is rooted in the theory of efficiency wage, highlighting the importance of malnutrition and poverty. This study's data were obtained by survey and completed by questionnaire in 1395 among 220 households living in Shahid Ghorbani district of Mashhad. A simultaneous equation system was used to investigate the existence of the Poverty Nutrition Trap. The results showed that the residents' bundle of food was significantly different from the average urban and provincial households. Results also revealed that the studied area inhabitants had spent almost half of the average cost of meat for urban households of Khorasan Razavi province and Iran. This issue also arose for the expenditure on high nutrients, including milk, eggs, fruits, and vegetables. The simultaneous equations system results showed that despite the low use of nutrients by the inhabitants of this area, the cycle of nutrition-based poverty had not been formed among them, and inadequate nutrition has not led to the vicious cycle of reduced income, reduced productivity, and inadequate nutrition. Therefore, other factors influencing the formation of poverty in the region should be identified to propose appropriate policies to reduce poverty.

In this study the effects levying various green taxes (base, 5%, 10% and 20%) on Iran’s fossil energy consumption (oil gas (OG), natural gas (NG) and gasoline (GA)), pollutant gas emission and social welfare was studied using a Recursive Dynamic Computable General Equilibrium (RDCGE) model. In order to RDCGE calibration, the Iran’s social accounting matrix (SAM)) and base scenario was used. Required data was gathered from central bank of Iran (CBI), Iran’s statistic center and ministry of energy during 2008-2016 seasonality. Also, data analyzing Matlab software was applied. Results indicate that in while increasing green tax, a positive shock of economic growth (1%), reduces the increasing trend of GO, NG and GA. Also, levying 0% and 5% green tax couldn’t make the consumption of mentioned energies efficient, levyeing 10% green tax makes the consumption of NG and GA efficient and levying 20% green tax makes the consumption of mentioned energies efficient. In addition, while increasing green tax, a positive shock of economic growth (1%), reduces the increasing trend of gas pullotants emission and in orther to decreasing gas pollutants emission during economic growth, 10% green tax should be levy. Finally, while increasing green tax from 0% to 5%, 10% and 20%, a positive shock of economic growth (1%), increases the social welfare, less than 1%, more than 1% and less than 1%, respectively. Therefore, between studied scenarios, levying 10% green tax is the best for increasing social welfare.

Monetary and financial crisis have different effects on different economies of the world, which in addition to economic factors of countries, depends on the type of their interlinkage in a global economy. Regarding to the importance of U.S. monetary policy in international trade, it is necessary to study the effect of monetary policy shocks of this country on gross domestic product of major oil-exporting countries for determining macroeconomic policies and forecasts in a global and dynamic framework. In this paper we examine the impact of U.S. monetary policy on GDP of major oil-exporting countries in the period of 1974-2017 using GVAR approach. The results indicate that the effect of U.S. Monetary shocks on GDP of these countries is different in short-term and long-term.

Today, the National Development Fund due to the important role that play in dealing with oil revenue shocks, they are considered by the oil countries as an effective mechanism for managing oil revenues. Therefore, a new Keynesians DSGE model with respect to price stickiness and major sectors as households, firms, governments, central banks and oil, the National Development Fund, Designed and calibrated for Iran's economy. The study of the first and second order moments of simulated variables confirms the relative success of the model in simulating the space of the Iranian economy. However, due to the combination of the state budget, the increase in the current and operational budget is far more than the development budget. The inefficiency of government investment has also made the government's budget more ineffective in the model. Also, the manufacturing sector of the non-oil sector of the Iranian economy has been rising (relatively small) because of National Development Fund share of Concessional facilities provided to the private sector. Other results indicate that increasing the share of the National Development Fund from oil revenues will increase private sector investment and consequently the production of non-oil sector in the country. The necessary condition for realizing the results of this policy is the increase in the capacity of non-oil revenues of the government.

Participatory or profit-loss sharing (PLS) contracts in Islamic banking have turned into fixed-return (interest-based) contracts which do not comply with the Sharia. Banks enter mostly into participatory contracts with borrowers, and although they estimate the profit they will receive from the contract, they do not consider the surrounding conditions and factors that could affect the contract’s profitability. Thus, by its nature, a participatory contract is one in which clients receive a bank loan and repay that loan at maturity with the minimum expected profit. In short, the participatory contract turns into a fixed-return contract. Using a game theory model, this study attempts to explain why Islamic banks use mostly fixed-return debt financing and the challenges associated with the effective execution of participatory contracts in the presence of adverse selection and costly state verification. We show a significantly higher compliance rate for Sharia-compliant contracts (i.e. participatory or PLS contracts) than for conventional (fixed-return or interest-based) contracts. Our findings provide evidence for why Islamic banks should reconsider using more participatory contracts which could benefit by increasing access to financing and improving compliance rates.