فصلنامه مطالعات اقتصادی کاربردی ایران
پیاپی 38 (تابستان 1400)

Achieving happiness has been always one of the goals pursued by human societies that has attracted the attention of many policy makers, thinkers and researchers. Meanwhile, the relationship between the oil revenues and happiness in the oil-exporting countries is an important subject that has rarely been noted. Therefore, the purpose of the present paper is to test the Easterlin paradox using resource curse hypothesis and to investigate the threshold effect of oil rent on happiness in OPEC countries in the period 2005-2016. For this purpose, the factors affecting happiness were modeled using dynamic threshold panel model. The estimation results have shown that the Easterlin paradox exists in OPEC countries. In other words, first, the increase in the ratio of oil rent to GDP has improved happiness in oil-producing countries, and after exceeding the 43% threshold, increasing the ratio of oil rent to GDP has reduced happiness in these countries.Achieving happiness has been always one of the goals pursued by human societies that has attracted the attention of many policy makers, thinkers and researchers. Meanwhile, the relationship between the oil revenues and happiness in the oil-exporting countries is an important subject that has rarely been noted. Therefore, the purpose of the present paper is to test the Easterlin paradox using resource curse hypothesis and to investigate the threshold effect of oil rent on happiness in OPEC countries in the period 2005-2016. For this purpose, the factors affecting happiness were modeled using dynamic threshold panel model. The estimation results have shown that the Easterlin paradox exists in OPEC countries. In other words, first, the increase in the ratio of oil rent to GDP has improved happiness in oil-producing countries, and after exceeding the 43% threshold, increasing the ratio of oil rent to GDP has reduced happiness in these countries.

A healthy and profitable banking system can better withstand economic shocks and play a more effective role in the sustainability and stability of the financial system. The creation of this type of banking system is possible when all financial institutions operating in a country's money market are sound institutions and have appropriate financial indicators. The experience gained from the recent financial crisis and the devastating effects of transition the crisis from the monetary sector to the real sector of the economy have shown that it is necessary to pay more attention to the issue of banking health. Therefore, the main purpose of this article was to investigate the factors affecting the asset quality ratio of the country's banking system, as one of the main indicators of banking system soundness with the emphasis on business cycles, macroeconomic variables and banking variables in the time period between the years 2001 to 2018. The statistical population in the study was 29 banks operating in Iran. In this research, the dynamic panel model, system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) has been used to achieve the desired goals. The results show that business cycles have a significant negative correlation with the quality of assets in the banking system. Also, all macroeconomic and banking variables have a significant correlation with the ratio of asset quality in the banking system.

Eliminating poverty and reducing income inequality is the most difficult task of economic policy making when considered with an economic growth. Therefore, the impacts of economic growth and development on income distribution largely depend on the growth model. Thus, determining an effect of economic growth on poverty is uncertain and relies on its country's growth pattern. The basic question of this paper which we are looking for is that have economic growth and income distribution had an impact on the poverty in Iran? To respond the question, we employed fuzzy regression for analyzing the variables relationship. The article also under the fuzzy logic presents an analytical framework at the aim of appraising the relationship between poverty, income distribution and economic growth. The results show that there is a positive relationship between the economic growth and poverty, in other words the economic growth has had negative impacts on the poverty reduction in Iran. Computational results based on fuzzy logic in Iran implies that the most ideal conditions come when the economic growth is 8 percent on overage and Gini coefficient is nearly 38.5 percent .

The aim of this paper is an examination of the co-movement between OPEC oil price and Tehran Exchange Market returns. To analyze the relationship between two variables, applied the wavelet coherence approach and utilized daily data during 2009-2020. According to the wavelet approach, a dynamic causal relationship between oil price and the stock market return provides for the causality between the two variables and the type of causal relationship in the time-frequency analysis. Findings showed there is a positive correlation between oil price and stock market earnings. Comparison of the data in annual time-frequency scale indicated that the oil price and stock market returns are in phase from 2009 to 2011, and observed a positive relationship between them. From late 2011 to mid- 2015, both variables are in phase, and oil prices are the leading factor in the stock market. During the period 2015 to 2021, both variables are in phase, but co-movements of oil price and stock market returns not observed. The non-causal effect of oil price on stock market earnings at some times does not mean that oil prices do not affect the stock market. As mentioned, in most periods, oil price and stock market profits are in phase. Factors such as imposing economic sanctions on Iran such as oil sanctions, fluctuations in the value of the dollar, volatilities in oil prices, changes in global demand for exports and imports from Iran, privatization, increasing the gap between the official and the market exchange rate, financial markets shocks, Middle East price tensions and the financing process affected the relationship between the stock market and oil price.

Life expectancy and infant mortality are of the major indicators for assessing the efficiency of every social health systems. Bulk of literature on health economics is related to the unilateral influences of macroeconomic variables on health sector indices and less attention has been paid to bilateral and simultaneous effects. Therefore, present paper aims to examine the bilateral and simultaneous impacts of the key macroeconomic variables on life expectancy and infant mortality in Iran during 1981-2018. To this aim, a system of simultaneous equations based on variables of life expectancy, infant mortality and economic growth by considering the government health care expenditures and Gini coefficient is developed. Findings indicated that income growth per capita positively affects the growth of life expectancy index by 31%, but growth of social-class differences or income inequality has a negative effect on this index. Moreover, escalation of health care budget in Iran has led to infant mortality rate slumping by 81%. It highlights the significant role of government, parliament and legislature in approving and improving the Ministry of Health budget and facilitating achievement of higher social-health standards. Finally, the outcomes reflected the simultaneous and positive effect of improving growth of life expectancy and reverse effect of infant mortality growth indices on the economic growth of Iran. The findings of current study provide evidence on the bilateral relationship between enhancing the macroeconomic conditions and improving the health economy indicators and existence of a reinforcing loop between them. Finally, the outcomes reflected the simultaneous and positive effect of improving growth of life expectancy and reverse effect of infant mortality growth indices on the economic growth of Iran. The findings of current study provide evidence on the bilateral relationship between enhancing the macroeconomic conditions and improving the health economy indicators and existence of a reinforcing loop between them.

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of food price uncertainty on food security in Iranian households during the period 1981-2018 in a nonlinear model. To estimate uncertainty, the Generalized Autoregressive Score Model, and to estimate the effect of food price uncertainty on food security, the Smooth Transition Autoregressive model has been used. The results show that food price uncertainty in the first regime (low level of investment in agriculture) has a negative and significant effect and in the second regime (high level of investment in agriculture) has a negative and non-significant effect on food security. In the first regime, where the level of investment in the agricultural sector is below the threshold, as food price fluctuations increase, market uncertainty increases and signals with less transparency to producers and consumers. Under these circumstances, consumers will face the problem of reduced purchasing power and insecurity in access to food, which has a negative impact on food security. While the second regime and increasing the level of investment in the agricultural sector, the negative effects of uncertainty on food security can be partially offset. According to the results of the present study, officials should take effective steps on one hand, by prioritizing the financing of investment in the agricultural sector and facilitating the conditions of activity of the private and cooperatives sector in this field like moving from traditional to industrial agriculture. On the other hand, to reduce the price gap, regulate the market demand of agricultural products, and create conditions for food price stability, create a kind of protection against short-term fluctuations and shocks.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) as a growth accelerating component has received a great attention in developed countries even in developing and less developed countries during recent years. It has a matter of greater concern for the economists how FDI affects economic growth of the host country economy. In closed economy there is no access to the foreign instruments and savings, this type of economy solely based on the domestic savings and investment sources. But in open economy, the investment comes from both sources either from domestic savings or foreign capital inflows like FDI. FDI enables the host country to achieve the investment level beyond its capacity to improve GDP and economic growth. FDI encourages the process of economic growth by filling up the saving-investment gap; transferring advanced technology; new entrepreneurship. This study investigates the impact of Foreign Direct Investment on economic growth in 30 Islamic countries. The econometric model is estimated by using Pooled Mean Group (PMG) for dynamic heterogeneous panels over the period 1992-2016. The results of the study show that FDI inflows have positive and significant effects on economic growth. Of course, the impacts of interaction terms between FDI and human capital; FDI, and trade openness on economic growth are more than each of them separately in the long and short run. The study suggests that the Islamic governments should design and implement appropriate fiscal, monetary and trade policies to make and improve an enabling environment to attract foreign capital inflows as a supplementary source of domestic investment.

Based on the World Health Organization (WHO), the efficiency of the government health system plays a vital role in improving the citizens’ quality of life. The purpose of this study is to investigate the association between political stability and corruption within the health system. The (ARDL or Autoregressive Distributed Lag) bounds testing approach was used in this study. The data of this study was collected from the second season of 1997 to the fourth season of 2018 once in every season and were analyzed into two groups. In the first group, infant mortality, mortality of children aged under 5, and life expectancy are dependent variables, and gross domestic product (GDP), immorality, and health care expenses are independent variables, and in the second group, the explanatory variable, namely political stability, were added as independent variables. According to the long-term results, in the first group, GDP and government health expending have a negative impact on children and infant mortality; moreover, GDP, government health expenditures, and political stability have a negative impact and corruption has a positive impact on children and infants' mortality in the second group respectively. The effects of all four variables on life expectancy were negative, which can be justified by the indicators of sustainable development and the environment. Therefore, more attention is needed by planners to allocate resources along with the leverage of corruption control and strive for political-economic stability that undermines long-term growth and prosperity.

Although the prevalence of COVID-19 pandemic and the worldwide periodic lockdowns, and travel restrictions have heavily damaged tourism destinations, however some theorists believe that the channels and intensity of adverse effects of COVID-19 are not even in different tourism destinations and it may depend on the tourism form that the destination is endowed with. The purpose of this research is to fulfill a comparative survey between two different tourism destinations that enjoy two different tourism forms, including pleasure tourism (Ganjnameh region) and commercial based tourism (Lalejin region) in Iran and try to explore the different complex aspects of COVID-19 effects on tourism industry and compare sustainability of both tourism forms. In order that, we apply Grounded Theory (GT) model and relay on qualitative data gathered by face-to-face interviews with 40 participants who are engaged in tourism related businesses in sample destinations. In according to the results, this study critically derives 4 different aspects of complexity of the situation arisen from corona virus pandemic on tourism sector in Ganjnameh and Lalejin including: resilience strategies and sustainability, change in tourist behavior, change in the tourism industry, and aggravating factors. In addition, the results showed that changes to tourism as a result of COVID-19 is complex and uneven in two different tourist destinations. Moreover, we realized that the economic statues of Ganjnameh region which is widely depend on pleasure tourism is more vulnerable to unexpected tourism crises compared to the Lalegin region, where the economics of a big bulk of habitants depends on commercial tourisms and handicrafts. Therefore, the commercial based touristic destinations looks more resilient and sustainable in comparison to pleasure tourism formed destinations. This study released valuable information about current statues and future concerns about tourism industry and offers suitable policy implications to cope with COVID-19 effects during and after Corona crisis.