فصلنامه اقتصاد مقداری
سال هجدهم شماره 2 (پیاپی 69، تابستان 1400)

Karoon River is one of the most important rivers in the south and southwest of the country, which plays an influential role in electricity generation, cultivation of various agricultural products, and water consumption in many cities of Khouzestan province. However, despite the great importance of this river, it has suffered from inefficient management and erratic withdrawals, dams without basic studies, and inefficiency in water use in recent years. Today, there is a discussion about transferring water from Karoon springs for drinking to other provinces, which will definitely be non-optimal without considering the actual value of the river water and taking advantage of the market mechanism. All these problems are in the absence of knowledge of the true value of this river as a natural gift. This study tried to extract the indirect benefits of the Karoon River for a small part of its users, i.e., the residents of Ahvaz city, by using the economic value selection modeling method. Obviously, by involving the whole community with the benefits of this river and demonstrating its other benefits, the numbers obtained will be much larger and more accurate. This issue can be the primary goal of future research. 

A modeling technique was selected to extract the value of river characteristics, and the Logit model with random parameters was used in two simple and compound forms. There are three steps for choosing a model. The first step is to identify the non-market characteristics of the Karoon River. Then, the selection sets should be specified in the next step, and finally, the relevant questionnaire should be designed. To this end, it was sought to make the most of the experimental background of the research and select the features in such a way as to ensure the necessary compatibility. This study determined the salient features of natural happiness, biodiversity conservation, ecological function, and educational function of the Karoon River. In the third step, for each of the features, three levels were considered. The first level or base level showed the current quality of the river services. The following two levels provided the average and good river quality services compared to the current situation.Given that this study aims to calculate changes in people's well-being, a monetary option was also posed as the last question. This economic value was calculated based on the entrance cost to national parks in Iran and consulting with experts from the Environmental Protection Organization of Khouzestan Province. The prices used in this study were set at 0, 45,000, and 70,000 Rials, respectively. The required data were collected by completing the questionnaire from households in Ahvaz city in 2015. To design the modeling, five cards were selected. The method of creating the cards was to use the deficit design technique and eliminate unlikely situations in the SPLUS software. Ten different modes were chosen between the four characteristics of the river and the cost of protecting it. Unexpected situations are either a low level of the river feature with a very high conservation cost or a high level of quality with a meager conservation cost. The ten modes obtained in 5 cards had two Z and T scenarios and a basic scenario. To use the opinion of academic experts and improve the quality of the cards, some members of the faculty of environmental economics were interviewed. The cards were accordingly modified and distributed to some (randomly selected) respondents to examine their transparency and comprehensibility. After reviewing the collected cards and collecting the comments of the experts of the Environmental Protection Agency, the cards were finalized. In the present study, the RPL model was used in two simple forms and with action (compound) variables to control the heterogeneity in people's preferences. The collected data were entered into version 12 of the STATA software to estimate the variables and evaluated by the models' maximum correlation method. The results showed that all coefficients (except C3) were statistically significant in the simple model and had the expected sign. The positive sign of the coefficient of river characteristics showed that with the improvement of the river's qualitative aspects, the people's desirability increases. Also, the negative sign of the cost of protection showed that by paying for the protection of the river, people's desirability is reduced. The correlation ratio showed that the null hypothesis of all variables was simultaneously rejected at the level of 1%, and the model was of sufficient validity. 

Comparing the correct logarithm for the two simple and compound RPL models, the superiority of the compound model over the simple model was revealed. With the introduction of action variables into the basic model, the logarithm of correlation decreased from -690-38 to -57.685. Also, based on the correlation ratio of the null hypothesis, all coefficients were rejected at the level of 1% at the same time, and the composite model had sufficient validity. Based on the significance of the coefficients and their sign, the action model was superior to the base model. All the river characteristics, including the natural landscape, ecological function, biodiversity, and educational function, were positive. The positive sign of these coefficients showed that if any of the characteristics of the river had improved, the responsiveness to the baseline would increase. Also, all of these variables are statistically significant at 1%, 5%, and 10%. The price variable was significant at the 1% level and had a negative sign indicating that respondents preferred to participate in conservation programs that did not require additional costs. Therefore, the negative sign of the payment coefficient indicated its negative effect on the desirability of the individual. Based on the results, by dividing the coefficient of river characteristics by the cost coefficient in the composite RPL model, the willingness to pay the final fee for each characteristic was extracted. The willingness to pay the final exchange between money and the desired feature is assumed to be stable. In other words, the final rate represents the substitution between river characteristics and cost variables. For example, suppose the river's natural landscape improves from an unacceptable to a less satisfactory state (A2). In that case, each of the river's indirect users is willing to pay an average of 12,7810 Rials per month (equivalent to 153,3720 Rials per year). The greatest desire to pay indirect users is related to ecological performance at a reasonable level. The willingness to pay a good level of 212270 Rials per month was achieved for this river feature.To calculate the annual social benefits of the Karun River, the numbers obtained for marginal willingness to pay for all features were generalized to the total population enjoying them. The number thus obtained was a deduction of the annual social benefits of the Karoon River gained from its quality and non-market services. Therefore, multiplying the population of Ahvaz city (1450,000 people) by the combined marginal willingness to pay for all features at a reasonable level, the annual social benefits resulting from the indirect use of the Karoon River were calculated to be 1249 billion Rials. But the annual social benefits do not reflect the capital value of the river, as these benefits will continue each year and continuously for an extended period of time. Hence the numbers obtained were reduced for a long period. The real interest rate of agriculture and natural resources (20%) was used without social discount rates. The capital value of the indirect use benefits of the river was equal to 19825 billion Rials. Of course, the numbers obtained are only from the valuation of the benefits of the indirect use of the river. Obviously, suppose in future studies, other advantages of the river, both used (direct and potential) and non-used, are calculated and added to the number obtained from this study. In that case, the value of the capital of Karoon River will be more obvious. 

The results of this study can be used as a baseline study in environmental policymaking. Among them, the results of this study can be used in the economic-environmental assessment of projects that will be implemented in the riverbed or connected with it in the future. Failure to conduct such evaluations will lead to inefficient allocation of river resources and will have detrimental environmental effects such as dust.The issue of river water allocation should also be considered according to its economic value. Any allocation between water bodies by the government would be a non-optimal allocation, and the mechanism of inter-provincial water markets should be used in this regard. The results of this study can be considered a basis for determining the price of water in this market because the obtained figures reflect the willingness of people to pay for the benefits of the Karoon River. Of course, pricing and valuation methods are very diverse, and this research does not claim to be superior to other processes in the literature.This study aims to estimate the value of the indirect benefits of the Karoon River for the residents of Ahvaz city.

Financial globalization since the mid-1980s has increased capital flows between industrialized and developing countries. However, foreign direct investment and foreign portfolio investment are the primary and influential factors of globalization. Also, according to theoretical literature, there is a relationship between financial globalization and economic growth of countries dependent on their degree of development, geographical conditions, size of the country in trade, and ..., which may be positive or negative in some cases. On the other hand, sustainable economic growth is one of the preconditions for attracting and exploiting foreign capital. This paper tries to consider the importance of international capital flows (including foreign direct investment and foreign portfolio investment) as the symbol of financial globalization, investigate the interaction between financial globalization and economic growth in a growth model for D8 countries.

In this regard, the specified econometric model is including three equations for economic growth, foreign direct investment, and foreign portfolio investment. Then for estimating the model, the required data are gathered for D8 countries during 1995-2015, and simultaneous equations method in panel data approaches have been used to evaluate the research problem.

In the specified economic growth equation, the estimated results show a long-run, positive, and statistically significant relationship between economic growth and both types of international investment flows. However, according to the estimated coefficients, the effect of the foreign direct investment on economic growth is more than the foreign portfolio investment in the selected countries during 1995-2015. This result indicates that foreign investment can be a determinant factor for the economic growth in the specified countries. Also, the population growth rate and the fixed capital accumulation positively affect economic growth, while the effect of the real exchange rate and the inflation is negative. In the estimated equation for foreign direct investment, the economic growth, the real exchange rate, and the difference between domestic and foreign interest rates positively affect this variable.In contrast, the coefficient of other variables, including the portfolio investment, the population growth, and the fixed capital accumulation, is negative, and the results indicate substitution between different types of capital flows. Finally, in the portfolio investment equation, the coefficient of the economic growth rate and the number of internet users is positive, and the coefficient of the foreign direct investment and inflation rate are negative. Hence, economic growth is a determinant factor to absorb foreign investment flows. 

As a policy recommendation, policymakers should pay special attention to foreign investment flows, especially foreign direct investment. Using suitable and necessary policies, try to promote infra-structures and capacities of their country to absorb foreign direct investment and generate sustainable economic growth.

The continuous growth of the price level in Iran indicates the prices trend is rising. Short-term inflation dynamics and cyclical interaction with actual economic variables are central in macroeconomics, especially monetary policy analysis.

 METHODOLOGY

Given the importance of inflation expectations, this study examines how it is formed by considering comparative and rational inflation expectations. Since the relationship between inflation expectations and consumption has an actual application in determining economic policies, this relationship is examined during the period 1367: 1 to 1395: 4 by considering the logarithm of consumption, logarithm of income, and logarithm of inflation as the research variables. All data sets used in this study are first-order, meaning that they only need to be differentiated once to be stationary. Because among the various consumption models, Friedman has played an essential role in introducing expectations into consumption theory and has talked about hot money. His approach has been used in the model. To model invisible variables such as rational inflation expectations, space-state models that allow unobservable variables to be used both in estimating the model and estimating them in the models are used. In this regard, the Kalman-filter algorithm was used, a powerful recursive method for optimal predictions of invisible variables and efficient estimates of the parameters of space-state models based on mathematical hope. The partial adjustment method has been used to model adaptive inflation expectations. For consistent estimation, methods that consider the endogeneity of variables should be used. Also, because the variables of collaborative research are of the same order, if there is no co-integration relationship between them, their differential form should be used. According to Granger's theorem, there will be an error correction if there is a co-integration relationship between the variables. Proving the endogeneity of associations related to expectations in the economic framework and therefore due to the existence, we estimate the error correction model with the GMM method. 

The results show that the effect of rational inflation expectations on long-run consumption in the Iranian economy is positive and significant. Thus, with a one percent increase in expected inflation, consumption will increase about 6 percent, but there is no significant relationship between rational expectations and consumption in the short term. The effect of comparative inflation expectations on consumption is also positive and significant. Thus, a one percent increase in comparative expected inflation will lead to an increase in consumption of 2 percent. Because in the case of comparative expected inflation, a positive relationship between expected inflation and consumption is confirmed, so that the elasticity of consumption to expected inflation is 2%. In other words, a 1% increase in comparative expected inflation will lead to a 2% increase in consumption.  

In the practical aspect of this research, it can be said that since Iran's economy is in a state of stagflation, (1) Managing inflation expectations through an efficient communication framework with economic factors can transform the retrospective pricing system into a futuristic one and reduce the actual costs of deflation. (2) The policymaker should take measures so that the inflation expectations of the society are not intensified because this issue can stimulate inflation by intensifying consumption and increasing its total demand. Then inflation expectations spread in this direction which has happened regularly in recent years. (3) Also, due to the impact of consumption changes on aggregate demand and aggregate demand on corporate investment decisions, the attention of monetary policymakers and the central bank on controlling inflation expectations is needed more than ever due to its direct impact on consumption. In this regard, policymakers should be careful in implementing their policies not to exacerbate inflation expectations. For example, what policies to enforce (or not) and what policies to implement (or not) play a role in forming positive or negative policies destructive inflation expectations. However, in this regard, expert economic advisors should be consulted on any policy. 4- Also, anti-inflation policies that control inflation have a favorable effect on inflation expectations and are therefore recommended.

Two of the most important problems in developing countries  are single product and their economic dependence on the export of raw materials which have had negative effects on the economic, political, social and even cultural structure. Non-oil exports based on knowledge-based economy  have special importance in economic security and sustainable  ,non-raw exports. 

For this purpose, to investigate knowledge-based economy axes  Economic Incentive and Institutional Regime (EIR),  Education and Training (ET),  Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) and Innovation and Technological Adoption (ITA) have been used. The main objective of this research is to study the impact of knowledge-based economy on non-oil exports of Iran according to the approach of resistance economy, by using time series data for the years (2016 - 1978 ) and auto regressive distributed Lag method. 

Based on the results, in the short-term  Education and Training index (ET) had the most positive impact on Iran's non-oil exports, which could indicate that investing in training and human resources development has led to  increasing non-oil exports  of Iran in the short-term. In addition, Innovation and Technological Adoption index (ITA) is the most influential factor on Iranian non-oil exports in the long-term and has a significant negative impact. It can be said that Scientific papers and patents could not communicate with the economy and  industrial sector of the country.Regarding the negative and significant effect of EIR,which has the least effect on Iran non-oil exports in both short and long run, it   can be stated that the presence and competition of domestic producers in the international market, due to the semi- traditional export texture and its low productivity and quality, can have an adverse effect on Iran's non-oil exports. Regarding the impact of Information and Communication Technology index (ICT) on non-oil exports, it can be said that this index in short and long -term has had a positive and significant effect on non-oil exports of Iran because of considerable progress in this field over the years. 

considering the negative and significant impact of  Innovation and Technological Adoption (ITA) and the positive and significant impact of Education and Training (ET)  in short and long term on Iran's non-oil exports, it is suggested that the researchers and inventors of the country  should be encouraged to undertake research projects  according to different economic sectors requirements  as well as providing them with special facilities.  As Economic Incentive and Institutional Regime Index (EIR)  have the least long- term impact on non-oil exports, it is suggested ,by changing the semi -traditional context of Iranian exports to a modern system,  a commercial liberalization basis for exporting non- oil products to Iran  is provided through using modern scientific methods.

Many economic and financial time series, especially stock prices, have gone through stages in which their behavior seems to have changed significantly. This change in behavior in time series may be over time in terms of the mean value, variance, or covariance of the current values of the time series with its past values. Today, the analysis of a market separately from other markets is almost invalid and analysts need to conduct their analysis based on the relationships between different markets. In addition, it is important to pay attention to the relationship between different markets especially the relationship between domestic and international markets to study the behavior of different economic variables and their time series.  

Oil, gold and stock markets are complex, time-varying, nonlinear and multivariate economic systems that are affected by various factors such as political, military, economic, and supply and demand factors. And these few studies have focused on GARCH, VAR,… econometric methods that are based on linear regressions. Despite the importance of examining the relationship between the three variables of crude oil price, gold price, and stock price index, unfortunately insufficient studies have been done in this country. Given that the time series of crude oil, gold prices, and stock price indices are a combination of components of different cycles, the relationship between these variables has changed over time, and examining these variables separately provides only partial and perhaps misleading information. Therefore, in contrast to previous research, the correlation between the stock market, crude oil and gold has been investigated with a multivariate framework, in which the correlation of time intervals has been considered. In addition, due to the fact that previous studies have emphasized the effects of uncertainty of one variable on other variables separately and have not examined the simultaneous effects of several variables on another variable, in this study, the relationship between the three variables has been investigated in the form of simultaneous communication using wavelet analysis. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between the price of gold, oil and the stock price index of the Tehran Stock Exchange in different periods and time periods. In other words, in this research, we seek to answer these questions  whether the stock price index of Tehran Stock Exchange is related to the price of international oil and gold assets and whether the cross-sectional relationship between the three variables has changed at different times and in different time zones. In line with the purpose of this article, in addition to using wavelet analysis and multiple correlation analysis, Granger causality and co-integration tests have also been used. The Johansson co-integration test was used to examine co-integration. The variables used in this research are daily time series data  of gold price, crude oil price and stock price index of Tehran Stock Exchange from January 2003 to May 2016.

The results obtained from this research (from R software) are as follows: 1- The above three time series have a significant correlation throughout the period. 2- The relationship between the stock market in Iran and the international markets of crude oil and gold has changed at different time scales. 3- Based on the results of the wavelet correlation of stock price index and crude oil price, in periods higher than 128 to 1024 days in the whole period (2003 to 2016) there is a high correlation. This issue indicates a temporary correlation between stock price index and crude oil price that fluctuates in the short term. 4- Based on the results of the correlation between the stock price index and the gold price, there are large correlation zones at intervals above 128 to 1024 days throughout the period. This issue indicates a temporary correlation between the stock price index and the gold price, which fluctuates in the short term.    

Therefore, according to the results of this study, it can be concluded that oil and gold assets are not suitable to cover the risk of stock price index and building a portfolio consisting of these three assets is not a good  one because the price changes of these variables have a significant correlation. In addition, it can be concluded that in the real world, other factors affect the stock price index, which are suggested to be identified and studied in future research.

Efficiency is a fundamental concept in economics and is applied in various economic areas. In microeconomics, efficiency has a particular role in consumption and production. The focus of this article is on production efficiency, which itself consists of many kinds. In the economics literature, the important question is that how much the current economic situation is away from the efficient situation and, in other words, what the extent of inefficiency is. Statistical facts and evidence clearly show that the Islamic Republic of Iran's economy suffers from a relatively high level of inefficiency in its various sectors, which can be induced from different factors including big size of the public sector, governmental controls in various economic sectors, deviation of domestic relative prices from the world relative prices, untargeted protective system, old technologies, widespread corruption, and economic rents and lack of competitiveness of domestic outputs. Although economic justice should not be sacrificed for increasing efficiency, it seems that the efficiency itself has been sacrificed during the last four decades of IR Iran's economic life. The economy has not been on the right path to deliver sustainable economic growth. Too much emphasis on the issue of economic justice in the last two decades and ignoring the issue of efficiency have been misleading. It seems that the investigation of efficiency in various economic sectors and identification of its determinants are essential for future financial planning. Various kinds of efficiency cannot be dealt with in one article. For this reason, the purpose of this paper is to estimate resource allocation inefficiency in the Iranian industrial sector.  

For this purpose, we calculate in the first stage the deviations in each sub-sector of the industry. Then in the second stage, we estimate inefficiencies in 23 industries with two-digit ISIC codes over 1374-1393. 

The empirical results derived from the stochastic frontier function show that the industry's efficiency in the production sector is about 60 percent.  Also, due to increasing returns to scale in the Iranian industry, marginal and average production costs are decreasing, and production does not occur in economic areas.  Therefore, firms operating in Iranian industries are not profit maximizers and have not reached an efficient production scale. Our estimated stochastic frontier function also shows that the labor force is an essential part of efficiency deviation in our calculations.  Therefore, it is necessary to promote labor quality through learning-by-doing as well as technical and professional education to increase their share and create incentives.  

This aim can be reached by linking labor force compensation and wages to its productivity. Also, it is necessary to investigate and evaluate the influential factors causing inefficiency in various economic sectors to design economic policies to eliminate or at least reduce these factors.