فصلنامه پژوهشهای اقتصادی (رشد و توسعه پایدار)
سال بیست و یکم شماره 4 (زمستان 1400)

Developments in the oil contracts of countries indicate that most countries have abandoned the use of service contracts only and resorted to the contract model of production sharing contracts and new concessions, or by modifying, have driven their contract models to a variety of partnership contracts. However, this study shows that although many legal efforts have been made in Iran and Iraq to use this contract model, but the lack of clear law in this regard has led to the reform process of oil contracts leading to the implementation of models of long-term service contracts. The results of comparing the economic evaluation of Iranian petroleum contracts with service contracts and production sharing contract in Iraq show that the production sharing contract has higher economic efficiency, while creating the necessary incentives for the contractor to implement risky projects, in various economic conditions creates greater alignment between the interests of the parties to the contract, establishes a more efficient and equitable distribution of technical and economic risks between them, which is an important factor for the commitment of the parties to the implementation and termination of the contract. Therefore, it seems that due to the prevailing conditions in the oil market, including competition and declining trends in oil prices the use of the contract model of production sharing contract, at least for fields with difficult conditions and common fields, is a solution, but to use it like other countries, more effective legal measures such as the enactment of a law is essential.

Since income inequality can affect individuals’ lives economically, socially, and environmentally, analyzing variables influencing income inequality is of great importance. Considering the fact that studies in Iran underestimate the role of the asymmetric macroeconomic instability on income inequality, this study attempts to analyze the asymmetric effect of macroeconomic instability on income inequality in Iran. To this aim, a non-linear autoregressive distributed lags model has been used over the period 1971-2018. The results indicate that in both symmetric and asymmetric models, macroeconomic instability has a direct effect on income distribution. It means that based on the asymmetric model, increases in macroeconomic instability raise the income inequality (unfavorable effect), and decreases in it reduce the income inequality (favorable effect). In terms of effect size, decreases in macroeconomic instability affect income inequality more than increases in it. In addition, in both asymmetric and symmetric models, an increase in direct tax or energy price reduces the income inequality, while an increase in indirect tax raises income inequality. Furthermore, the Kuznets hypothesis is not rejected in this study.

Financial development and stability and their relationship with economic growth is one of the most important and influential issues in economic growth. Therefore, economists have studied this issue by exerting different conditions. The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of financial development and financial stability on Iranchr('39')s economic growth using the generalized method of moments (GMM) during 1992-2019. The results show positive and meaningful effects of financial development and financial stability on economic growth. The variables of lagged economic growth, education, fixed investment and trade liberalization have positive and significant effects on economic growth, while, inflation, government expenditure and active population have negative impacts on economic growth. Therefore, considering the important role of education, it is recommended to government to invest in this sector and upgrade the production structure, make the necessary structural reforms in the capital market and banking system, direct credit and liquidity to strengthen private sector production, as well as improve the level and composition of government spending in order to increase production efficiency.

One of the most important issues in monetary and fiscal policy analysis is their efficiency or effectiveness, which tells policymakers about effectiveness of policies. In general, the effectiveness or effectiveness of monetary and fiscal policies refers to the extent to which they affect equilibrium national output or income.  Therefore, in order to achieve its goals, the policymaker should be able to respond appropriately to the production gap and inflation accordingly, a policy rule covering the goals of the central bank should be used. In this study, in the framework of Taylor rule, the response of monetary and fiscal policies to the output gap has been investigated in the Iranian economy using the Quantile regression method over the period 1976-2018. The results show that by increasing the output gap in different quantities, monetary authorities do not show any reaction to the output gap. But government policymakers pursue an expansionary policy toward the output gap, which is contrary to Taylorchr('39')s rule, and the results confirm that government policymakers make policy at their will.

Establishing industrial free trade zones is one of the strategies of developing countries to take advantage of global trade, without the disadvantages of free trade expanding to the country. To take advantage of the free trade zones, Iran has so far established seven zones in different regions. But one of the important questions after the establishment of free trade zones is whether the established free industrial trade zones are able to improve economic growth and development.  In this study, using the Synthetic Control Approach, the answer to the mentioned question is given for the Anzali Free Zone. In other words, the effect of establishing the Anzali free zone on the growth and development of Guilan province is estimated. The results of the study show that the Anzali Free Zone has not been able to have a positive and significant effect on the growth and development of Guilan province. Of the four variables under study, the establishment of the Anzali Free Zone has negative effect on the per capita industrial value-added in Guilan province compared to the control group. Also, it has not have significant effect on the amount of agricultural value-added, services value-added, the real GDP per capita in Guilan province compared to the control group.
Therefore, it can be concluded that the establishment of the Anzali Free Zone has not been able to achieve one of its main goals, which is the development and growth of the Guilan.

The main purpose of this paper is to estimate the Iranchr('39')s economy-wide energy rebound effect. Based on Brookes’ explanation on the rebound effect combined with the IPAT equation, this paper first presents a different estimation method of economy-wide energy rebound effect. Then, by using the state-space model, Iranchr('39')s economy-wide energy rebound effect is estimated over the period 1967–2017. Results show that the annual average of Iranchr('39')s economy-wide energy rebound effect is 57%. Also, except the 1978-1988 period, in all periods under study energy rebound effect is considerable and it has an increasing trend that makes actual energy saving far less than potential energy saving.
Due to the significant impact of energy rebound effect on Iranchr('39')s energy saving, in order to reduce the effect of energy rebound effect and increase energy saving it is recommended that, first, the amount of the energy rebound effect be taken into account while designing energy saving goals and policies, because its overestimation or underestimation, causes actual energy saving to be more or less than predicted. Second, saving of energy should not be based on improving energy efficiency solely, because if this policy is not accompanied by appropriate price measures, due to the energy rebound effect, a significant amount of the potential energy saving will not be realized in practice. Of course, relying on price policies and abandoning energy efficiency policies will have the same results.

To prevent gasoline smuggling to abroad and its excessive consumption in the country, the price of gasoline increased and gasoline was quoted in 2019. This policy has affected the consumption expenditures of different income groups of households. To compensate the expenditures increment, the government pays subsidies to some income groups of households. This paper investigates the effects of this policy on the consumption expenditures of different income deciles in urban and rural areas and compares them with gasoline subsidies. To this end, a developed version of implicit subsidy elimination model is employed. The input-output table of Iran for the year 2016 is used as database of the research. The results of the research indicate that the subsidy of the government will cover the consumption expenditure increment due to its gasoline price policy for all target income groups. However, this policy fails to compensate the increment of the consumption expenditure in the case in which the labour force and capital owners adjust their endowments and the exchange rate is changed with respect to domestic price inflation.