پژوهشنامه اقتصادی
پیاپی 70 (پاییز 1397)

Expenditure pattern across households varies due to differences in their economic circumstances, household size and composition. So, movements in prices of goods over time will have different impacts on households. “Equivalence scale” is an index that enables us to do welfare comparisons and measurements of poverty and inequality across heterogeneous households, under consideration of households’ demographic characteristics and economies of scale in consumption. Implementation of targeted subsidies policy in Iran that has made significant price variations in recent years, has changed Iranian households’ equivalence scale. In this research, the urban households’ equivalence scale and variation of relative cost of a child was estimated using PS-QUAIDS and nonlinear Seemingly Unrelated Regressions (SURs), applying Iranian household's budget dataset for 2008 to 2012. Results indicate that the cost of an urban child is equal to 13 percent of an adult for 2008 until 2010 and the targeted subsidies policy has a negative and significant impact on equivalence scale.

By supplying energy for many activities, electricity is one of the most important drivers of industrial development. But, electricity industry is one of the largest producers of polluting gases due to combustion of fossil fuels. This has raised serious concerns about the externalities of pollutant emissions in power generation processes. This paper aims at modeling and estimating the health effects and costs of electricity generation in thermal power plants in Iran based on the Impact Pathway Approach using SimPacts software. Based on our results, the health costs of electricity generation in Iran in year 2014 are more than 110 trillion Rials, which accounts for about 1 percent of GDP in this year. Also, the research results show that combined cycle and gas turbine power plants respectively impose the lowest and highest social health costs per kilowatt-hour of electricity generation. Ultimately, by modifying the fuel mix and only using natural gas as the fuel for power plants, the health costs of electricity generation will be reduced by more than 53 percent.

This paper takes a novel perspective in analyzing theoretically how the sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) would impact on the sovereign risk, and thereby, the financial sector and, due to some frictions, the real sector of its owner economy. This happens as we suggest SWFs could help in mitigating the extant financial markets incompleteness. In a standard dynamic (continuous time) stochastic partial equilibrium model, it is shown how the SWFs would, under certain conditions, mitigate its owner sovereign risk, in which case it leads to the possibility of impacting on external financing costs of financial intermediaries and corporate sector. In particular, we explore how the sensitivity of default and/or financial distress and/or debt restructuring against (domestic and/or foreign) adverse shocks to the economy would be less, when there is a SWF in the economy in comparison with when the economy lacks it. This is investigated for two sources of financing the SWF. Further, we argue how the costs and benefits of establishing the SWF would be affected by the (relative) size of SWF, its type, and the state of the financial (surplus) capacity in time of setting up the SWF. The externality associated with the establishment of the SWF for the sovereign risk and formation of the new channel for the transmission of monetary and fiscal policies have been examined too. Mutual interactions between the SWF and the monetary and fiscal policy within the analytical framework have been analyzed as well.

The main objective of this study is to investigate the dynamics of income distribution and to find evidence of convergence or divergence in per capita income in Iranian provinces by using newly developed methods for Exploratory Space–Time Data Analysis (ESTDA). In order to achieve this goal, per capita income data were collected for the period from 1997 to 2014. Then, using the markov chain and the spatial markov chain, the transition probability matrix is estimated at different time periods. The results show that in an 18-year period in Iranian economy, there was a very small possibility that poor provinces (in terms of per capita income) could increase their per capita income. Also, the values of asymptotic distribution show very weak tendency to divergence in per capita income of Iranian provinces during period 1997 to 2000. According to the high probability of 77% for staying at each level of per capita income, one can claim that there is no strong evidence of convergence or divergence in the distribution of per capita income between provinces of Iran. Also, the estimation results of the spatial transition probability matrix show that the moves between income classes for each province depends on the performance and status of neighboring provinces.

The subject of labor force productivity changes during business cycles has been the focus of much debate among macroeconomics, which has gained less attention among studies focusing on Iranian Economy. In the study, we have aimed at empirically examining the role that labor force productivity fluctuations play during economic cycles in the Iran using time-series data for the period of 2005Q2-2015Q1 by applying an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model. In order to estimate relations, we have separated fluctuation and trend components based on Hodrick-Prescott filter. Based on our results, it is suggested that labor force productivity moves in alignment with GDP and increases in expansion periods and decreases in recession periods which indicate pro-cyclical behavior of labor force productivity in Iranian Economy. Second, in the last seasons of an expansion period, the role of labor force productivity fluctuations decreases in gross domestic product fluctuations which is along with the theory.

Globalization and economic openness, by raising external risks, increase the presence and interference of governments to support domestic economy. However, by integrating markets and creating competition in private sector, globalization decreases the presence of government in the economy. In this paper, under the theoretical framework of compensatory and efficiency hypotheses, the relationship between government size and economic openness in the long- and short-term is investigated for select member countries of Organization of Islamic Cooperation for period 1998-2015. The designed model is estimated by using vector autoregressive  (VAR) and the two-stage least squares (2SLS) methods. The results of vector error correction model (VECM) estimation show that in short run, government size, population and financial openness influence government size. In the long run, urbanization and population variables have the greatest impact on government size. The effect of financial openness on government size in the long run is decreasing, but the effect of the trade openness is increasing. The results of 2SLS estimation also show that the effect of efficiency hypothesis on the size of the government cannot outweight the incremental effect of the compensatory hypothesis and, as a result, with increasing economic openness in these countries, government size has become larger.

Productivity is a behavioral trait that relies on relationship optimization and interaction between internal and external factors. Productivity derives its vitality from the fact that when it increases, total output can increase without increasing the factors involved in production. This study aimed to evaluate productivity (efficiency and effectiveness) of select banks in Islamic Republic of Iran’s Interest-Free Banking system. By using a numeric index method, indices of labor productivity, Intermediary inputs productivity, capital productivity and total factor productivity were measured in select commercial banks with and without considering effectiveness factor. Our findings suggest that average growth of labor productivity, capital and intermediate consumption in selected banks in the period under review was descending, the average productivity growth of deposits in banks in the study period was 0.2% and average total factor productivity growth without and with equivalent effectiveness indicators were 1.82 and -4.2% respectively.

Immigration is one of main concerns of policymakers in situations of recession and low return on economic activities due to its impact on labor supply and pressure on unemployment. Over the past three decades, Iran has become a host country with a wide range of Afghan immigrants who have a long history of mutual language, religion, culture, benefits and a common border, and are seeking to work in Iran. In this paper, the pathology of the arrival of Afghan immigrants and the intensity of the influx of immigrants on supply forces in Iranian labor market by using the ARDL model in the period 1979-2015 shows that increased immigration through the pressure on labor supply has led to an escalation of unemployment in Iran. Based on estimation results, the pressure of immigrants on labor supply was not such that wages would suffer a significant reduction in the labor market, and there was no significant relationship between immigrants and their wages in the labor market. The high correlation between the level of minimum wages and wages, the type of occupations of Afghan immigrants (mostly unskilled), the determination of wages based on the livelihood of workers, the time and area dispersion of migrants and their different capabilities are among the main factors that affect the relationship between immigrant labor supply and wages for the period under study.

Money is one of the powerful institutions that humankind created and developed and nowadays it affects all of aspects of social human life. Money essentially is production of human socialization and we should think of it as a social reality that although has a special and independent role for each individual, but it has overall acceptance in the society. Bitcoin is a decentralized electronic fiat currency implemented using cryptography and peer-to-peer technology. Because of increasing development of bitcoin and also other similar currencies, our monetary policy-makers should take proper position about it. In this study we make an analysis about value of bitcoin in context of Etebariat theory developed by Allameh Tabataba’i and argue that value of bitcoin is consistent with this context. Our study about monetary and banking schools like metalism, chartalism, money in circle and banking shows that because of peer-to-peer system of Bitcoin, although Bitcoin is inconsistent with all of the abovementioned theories, but it is consist with Etebariat theory because of no need to third party. So Bitcoin is a counter-example to classical theory of money and it verify Etebariat theory.

In recent years many indices have been developed to measure the vulnerability and resilience of economies to external shocks. The development of composite indicators to quantify these concepts has received particular attention in economic literature. This study aims to investigate the impact of economic vulnerability and resilience on volatilities of Gross Domestic Products (GDP) per capita in 106 countries by using panel data during period 2000-2014. To conduct this study, economic vulnerability and resilience indices have been constructed using Briguglio method. We also use Hodrick-Prescott filter to estimate GDP per capita volatilities. The results of this research indicate that: first, economic vulnerability has a significant positive effect on volatilities of GDP per capita. Second; economic resilience has a significant negative impact on volatilities of GDP per capita. Third, Iran has low resilience and high vulnerability because of high export concentration, inappropriate macroeconomic conditions and weakness of good governance.