پژوهشنامه اقتصادی
پیاپی 73 (تابستان 1398)

This study is an attempt to present and numerically simulate a dynamic system of energy price-energy supply-economic growth to perform a comparative analysis of strategies for energy intensity reduction in Iran. To achieve this purpose, a nonlinear differential equation system is designed and the data for total domestic energy production, non-oil GDP and energy price index during period 1992-2014 are used to estimate the parameters of system by means of whale optimization algorithm. In the next stage, four strategies (exploration of new energy sources and imports, moving towards a self-regulatory market, industrial restructuring, and adoption of new energy production and price policies) are addressed based on aforementioned system. The results indicate that the first three strategies will stabilize the energy market, but the fourth strategy will only drive the system into a cyclical shock state. The effects of different individual and combined strategies on energy intensity are also investigated. The results show that under a reasonable control power, these strategies can reduce energy intensity, but an unplanned increase in control power leads to reverse results. As for the energy intensity stabilization under these strategies, the lowest energy intensity is achieved by the third strategy and the lowest time to stabilize energy intensity is under the second strategy. It should be noted that the comprehensive strategy (combination of the first three strategies) outperforms individual strategies both in energy intensity stabilization and energy intensity reduction. Accordingly, implementation of a comprehensive strategy or any of the individual strategies with reasonable control power rather that unconsidered and strict application of a specific strategy, is the best choice for reduction of the national energy intensity in Iran.

In consumption demand studies, we can consider that choice of quality is affected by consumption decisions (whether to consume or not). The term “quality” refers to any subjective factor that motivates consumers to pay for a good more than its substitutes. Any change in a consumption explanatory variable has two effects: 1) the probability of consuming the good and 2) considerations of quality. The aim of this paper is to examine the effect of factors such as demographics and socio-economic factors on choice of quality in meat consumption including livestock and aggregated meat (livestock, poultry and aquatic). Furthermore, we estimate quality elasticities using cross-sectional survey data for year 2014 among Iranian rural and urban households. The paper applies Heckman two-step method to estimate unknown parameters of participation and consumption equation. Our findings show that the most important variable affecting the choice of meat quality for consumption is household income. In this study, the quality elasticity of income in meat consumption is positive in all samples and there are other variables (gender, age and education of household breadwinner) which have significant effect on quality choice in meat consumption.

The main purpose of this paper is to study social order in Iran between two revolutions (1906-1979). Generally, there are two types of social order: limited- and open-access. Limited-access (or Natural State) social order is sub-categorized into three types of fragile, basic and mature. It can be shown that between constitutional revolution and 1921 coup, Iran was caught in fragile natural state. Then, from this coup to political regime change from Qajariyyeh to Pahlavi (1921-1925), Iran was switching from fragile to basic natural state. Iran’s social order in Reza Shah era (1925-1941), was basic natural state and economic growth achieved in a closed political sphere which did lead to double imbalances. From 1941-1946 Iran experienced a sharp backward move to fragile social order. After that, social order was switching from fragile to basic natural state during 1947-1953. During period 1953-1963, basic natural state was stabilized. There were a lot of attempts to politically control the military (as the last transition condition to open-access social order) during 1941-1963, but these efforts finally failed. The golden decade of economic growth in Iran happened between 1963 to 1972. In this decade, economic system was switching form basic to mature natural state. However, political access was under tight restriction and control. Therefore, double imbalance of economic and political systems emerged again. In 1973-1979 the country was going back from basic to fragile natural state, and dominant coalition threatened and finally was overthrown completely by Islamic revolution (1979).

The global financial crisis has increased the attention of scholars to stabilization and sustainability of government's fiscal policies in recent years. The crisis also reminded governments that they should have a special look at their debt sustainability so that they can repay their debts in different scenarios, including economic recession, at a minimum, in order not to enter a Ponzi game. In recent years, the level of debt in many developed and developing countries have been increasing, and Iran was not an exception to this phenomenon. Given that Iran is an oil-exporting country and its budget is heavily dependent on oil revenues, the lack of an optimal route could have significant effects, including that it could lead to revenues from the sale of oil to repay debt, as well as imposing heavy debt burden on future generations. Hence, in this study, we try to extract the equilibrium debt path in Iranian economy in a framework of an endogenous growth model and compare it with the actual debt path in Iran. The results of simulating equilibrium equations show that the equilibrium path of debt in Iranian economy is lower than its actual path. Therefore, as a policy recommendation, fiscal authorities of the country should pay particular attention to budget deficit and debt and, through a proper taxation system and the correct utilization of oil revenues, can make the actual debt path close to its optimum level to prevent excessive government borrowing from banking system and the negative consequences it poses.

One of the essential indices for measuring sustainable development is ecological footprint. This paper which focuses on concept of ecological footprint of fossil fuels, tries to answer two important questions. The first question is wether the pattern of export and import of energy content in Iran confirms its comparative advantage? The second question is how much is the ecological footprint of Iranian economic sectors in year 2011? To measure ecological footprint of fossil fuels, we employ two different databases in this article, first activity by activity symmetric I-O table calculated by Iranian Statistical Center for year 2011 and second, Hydrocarbon Balance Sheet of year 2011. Our main results are presented based on two scenarios. In the first scenario, production technology is identical between Iran and other countries, and in the second scenario production technology isn’t the same. Our results based on two scenarios show that in macro level Iranian economy has trade surplus in fossil fuels content. But in sectoral level, 23 and 18 economic sectors have trade deficit in energy content based on first and second scenarios respectively. Ecological footprint based on our first scenario is more than 191 million hectares and the deficit per person is 2.3 hectare. In the second scenario the ecological footprint is 184 million hectares and the deficit per person is 2.2 hectares. Our conclusion is that because of low level of energy productivity in Iran, the results of second scenario are more realistic.

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of "help" behavior on “individual incentive reversal”. In order to measure the variable “incentive reversal”, a dynamic game with complete information in the laboratory environment was held. The sample consists of 186 students from the universities of Yazd, Meybod and Mehriz, divided into 62 teams of three persons. Also, to measure the "help" variable, the players were asked after the game to voluntarily and secretly spend the proceeds of the game in a charity. In this framework, players could grant part of the proceeds from the game to either  “treat cancer-illed children” or “advance research”. The results showed that teams with more volunteering players would see less incentive reversal among team members.

Financial development is a key determinant of economic growth and development. This is more important in the case of resource-rich developing countries; because if they achieve high level of financial development, they will get benefit from resources in order to access sustainable growth and development. With regard to importance of this issue, the impact of financial development on conversion of natural resource rents into foreign capital in Iran has been studied during 1970-2014. The results of our ARDL model show that natural resources have positive effect on foreign capital in both short-run and long-run. Also, the results of rolling ARDL regression in the case of multi-dimension financial development index indicate that financial development has failed to materialize its potential effect to improve the impact of natural resources on foreign capital accumulation in both short-run and long-run. The outcome of regression based on single-dimension financial development indices suggests that some of these indices have been able to increase the positive effect of natural resources on foreign capital accumulation. However, there are no observable beneficial effects in the long-run. It seems that the lack of attention to financial development channels such as foreign financial liberalization, as well as financial repression during a long period of time, has been the main cause of this phenomenon in Iran.