فصلنامه برنامه ریزی و بودجه
پیاپی 152 (بهار 1400)

In order to implement structural reform in the government budget of Iran, it is necessary to analyze the budgetary characteristics. This paper attempts to identify the determinants of budget deficit by using ARDL modeling based on the Iranian budget records for the period 1964-2020. Theoretical and empirical evidence both show that three main factors including budgeting structure, macroeconomic situation, and political economic forces could play a definite role in the budget deficit. Long term estimated coefficients of the research models explain that budget deficit will be worsened with bigger size of government, and with the increase in the government expenditure dispersion in comparison with the government revenues dispersion, also with a bigger share of public investment in total investment, and finally with wider GDP gap and inflation gap. Correspondingly, more inequality of income leads to a bigger deficit. The results also indicate that in the economy of Iran expenditures are a driving force that brings about the budget deficit. It is evident that in a resource-based economy, an increase in revenues of resource exports would relocate the economy to the positive output gap and boom cycle that in turn will push governments to a higher level of expenditures and a budget deficit. During the recession period in which government revenues decline, the recurrent expenditures resist adjustment due to its sticky behavior, hence the deficit gets worse. Meanwhile, political economic factors such as weakness of the government power and pressure by interest groups, all together have magnifying effects on worsening the budget deficit. During the era that foreign reserves in Stabilization Account and National Development Fund were enough to compensate deficits, the presence of the wealth effect on government expenditures, and thus on the budget deficit, is confirmed.

The present study attempts to analyze the effect of the financial accelerator component on the business cycles of the Iranian economy by considering the financial friction in the process of obtaining bank loans. In addition, the inclusion of banks chr('39')capital adequacy ratio in the model enters the role of bankschr('39') balance sheets in the occurrence of financial friction in the Iranian economy. Weak credit rating of bank customers in Iran makes it possible to use a document-based approach to properly understand the financial friction in the credit system, instead of using the inspection algorithm of lending banks and covering their costs through different interest rates. For this purpose, a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model (DSGE) is designed in accordance with the structural features of the Iranian economy, and is estimated using the Bayesian approach and seasonal data in the period 2009-2020. The results indicate that taking the financial sector into account leads to a more accurate understanding of the fluctuations of business cycles in the Iranian economy. This is determined by comparing the instantaneous reaction functions of the main variables of the model in two scenarios with different degrees of financial friction. The results of the study also show that the changes due to the financial accelerator component in the impact of monetary shocks and productivity are more noticeable than other shocks.

Price stickiness, measured by indicators like frequency and duration of price changes, determines the short-term real effects of monetary policy in the economy. Discovering the factors affecting price adjustment allows the monetary policymaker to predict the changes in pricing behavior by monitoring the changes of these influential factors. Employing microdata of 84 million monthly price observations from the Refah chain stores in Iran shows that on average, goods’ prices did not last more than 2.52 months and the price of at least 47.34 percent of examined goods changed every month, meaning that the price stickiness is pretty weak in Iran’s economy and there is a little room for the monetary authority to influence the real economy. Moreover, as regards the factors affecting the price-setting behaviors, the results show that the frequency of price changes has a positive threshold correlation with the inflation rate; As the inflation crosses 18%, the intensity of this positive effect decreases. It is important to note that inflation is not the only factor explaining the pricing behavior, but the growth rate of liquidity, GDP and exchange rate also have significant positive effects on the frequency and magnitude of price changes.

Taxes, as the most important source of government revenue and one of the economic policy instruments, play a key role in development policies. In this study, the evolution process of different models of tax evasion (from neoclassical approach to behavioral economics) is investigated, also the assumptions and variables of these models are analyzed. Then, using the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) based on the opinions of tax experts, the factors affecting tax evasion are ranked in different models to determine which model is superior in explaining and measuring the factors affecting tax evasion in Iran. The results show that instability of preferences, loss avoidance, and ambiguity avoidance are the main factors influencing tax evasion. Correspondingly, rational behavior and behavioral adaptation have the least explanatory power as regards tax evasion in Iran. Based on the results, in analyzing and measuring Iranchr('39')s tax evasion, a paradigm shift towards behavioral economy models is needed.

This paper aims to estimate the influence of managers, including CEOs and members of the board, on changing the firms’ policies and performances. To this end, we first assemble a hand-collected database on the composition of the boards of directors and CEOs across 488 firms listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange and Iran Fara Bourse Co. for the period 2010-2018. We attempt to provide an overview of the characteristics of the top executives of the Iranian firms for the first time. Correspondingly, some of the findings point out an average of two-year tenure for managers in companies, the presence of the majority of the board members in only one company over our sample period, the inverse relationship between the managers’ tenure and their level of education, and low participation of women as managers Having combined these data with the data from the financial statements, we ran a set of regressions on a sample period of 2010-2016 to identify whether managers have significant effects on the firms’ behavior and performance. The results show a significant increase in the adjusted  for the regressions of the firms’ performance - in contrast to the regressions of the firms’ policies - after adding managers fixed effects. Meanwhile, only a small fraction of managers have significant effects in the regressions, and for a small fraction of them the magnitude of the effects is large.

The concept of rational behavior has a significant role in economics and its analysis of market economy and general equilibrium. On the other hand, there exists a logical relation between limits of rationality and learning from error. With explaining the concept of rational behavior in the neoclassical economics and its relation with the rational expectation hypothesis this article addresses the following two questions: First, has the idea of learning from error played a role in the formation of neoclassical concept of rational behavior? If not, secondly, can the idea play a role in improving the meaning of rational behavior in economics? In response to these question, the article reviews the following discussions (a) the neoclassical concept of rational behaviors is reviewed and the critiques of behavioral economics and the theories of choice under uncertainty are discussed, (b) the rational usage of information and its relation with the meaning of rational behavior are examined, and in this context the importance of the idea of learning from error is explored, and (c) Karl Popper’s theory of rationality as openness to criticism and its consequence for the idea of learning from error in terms of conjecture and refutation  will be discussed. The article finally uses the Austrian economists’, i.e. Hayek and Krizner, critiques regarding the neoclassical concept of rational behavior in order to show that Popper’s theory of rationality can improve the concept of rational behavior in economics.