BUSINESS CYCLES IN IRAN

This paper has decomposed, statistically, the real GDP of Iran into three components, long run trend, business cycles and short-run shocks. This is devoted to the empirical measurement, identification and causes of the business cycles. It also estimates GDP growth on the basis of estimated trend, business cycle and irregular component. The methodology consists of three steps: The first, to dissect the real GDP to get its components, the second, empirical investigation of the business cycles which involve identification and causes, and the third, to predict the components into future. First is assumed that annual series of real GDP is an aggregate of three components including trend, cyclical movements and irregular movements. The HP filter is used in two stages to separate these components; a) to extract the long run trend from the original series and b) to filter out cycles from the rest. Second, the main macro variables are tested in terms of co movement volatility. And finally, the trend and cycles into future over a five-year period are estimated using ARIMA. It is found that the trend growth of real GDP is negative, during the periods of 1356-61 and 1364-67 Iranian years. The results also show that the economy of Iran has undergone seven complete business cycles, and it is now facing the recessionary phase of an eight business cycle, which has begun in the early 1380. It is projected that the current recession will continue until 1383 (2004), and then recovery will take place. It is also found that the Iranian economy is cyclical in a BC sense. Statistically, the results show that the GDP cycles last, on average, 6 years. We also showed the existence of co movement between GDP and the most relevant macro variables. In other words, the main aggregates are also cyclical and their peaks and troughs occur at more or less the same quarters as the GDP. Finally, the results indicate that investment and exports have an active role in generating cycles. Most major finding is that the Iran BCs are caused by shifts in oil revenues. The evidence shows that this variable composes all the characteristics of the typical causes and leads the GDP movements.