Analyzing Tax Incentives Effects in the Partial and General Equilibrium Framework : the case of Iran

Assessing the recent decade’s literature outlines that, advanced economies mainly employed temporary tax incentives to spur economic activities after 2007-2008 economic crisis whereas developing countries use broadly them as a normal as well as a permanent fiscal policy to intrigue economy. Among latter group, Iran’s fiscal authorities have been using quite an extensive diversity of tax incentives to boost real sector variables such as investment, capital accumulation and output for a long-term period. The methodology is based on the simulating a partial as well as a general equilibrium model. Benefiting from a New Keynesian general equilibrium (NKGE) model, in this research, the comprehensive effects of tax allowances, accelerated depreciation, and tax reduction on the macroeconomic variables (investment, capital, output and consumption) and fiscal measures (government revenues and the present value of the government revenue) have been evaluated. Our findings reveal that, based on the assumption of flexible wages and prices, running tax incentives policy would culminate to considerable budget deficit followed by an unsustainable fiscal stance in the economy. However, imposing nominal rigidities by their special mechanisms brings about positive effects of tax incentives and relatively fiscal sustainability. In other words, introducing rigidities in wages and prices causes positive reactions of mentioned macro and fiscal variables.