پژوهشنامه اقتصاد انرژی ایران
پیاپی 42 (بهار 1401)

The study of Iran's position in the international trade network of natural gas shows that although Iran is the second country with natural gas resources in the world and has a special position in the transit of natural gas, it is not an important player in the international trade network of natural gas. One of the most important issues for the development of international gas trade is to examine the possibility of exporting Iran's natural gas in the near future. The present study tries to estimate and simulate an econometric model including macroeconomic and energy variables, analyze the outlook of domestic demand and balance of natural gas in different conditions of Iran's macroeconomics, and assess the feasibility of exporting natural gas. The simulation of different scenarios for the period 2022-2032 shows three findings. Firstly, continuing the current policies result in the undesirable trend of the TFP at the macroeconomic level and economic inefficiency in the energy sector. Secondly, macroeconomic policy reforms in order to raise economic growth result in a negative natural gas balance. Thirdly, for the reduction of energy intensity, the energy price reform is not a sufficient policy, and emphasizing the non-price factors towards technical progress in order to rise energy efficiency is important. In addition, making an investment decision for infrastructure development of potential natural gas supply is important as a necessary condition.

The existence of a comprehensive model that enables the calculation of the real price of electricity production along with its environmental costs is one of the most important analytical tools in energy economics. It is now different from when virtual water costs and other environmental costs of power generation are taken into account. In this article, information from 56 power plants across the country was used. In this paper, an algorithm for calculating the Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) is presented. Among these, common technologies in the production sector, including heating, gas, combined cycle, wind, and photovoltaic power plants, have been studied from an economic perspective and the results of calculating their cost price have been presented. The results show that the highest costs are related to electricity generation using gas technology (18.86 cents per kilowatt hour with subsidized fuel and 35.98 cents per kilowatt hour with exported fuel) and the lowest cost of generating electricity through a wind farm is 6.59 cents per kilowatt hour. In the calculations, the cost of fuel in the form of subsidies and exports and the cost of virtual water in the production process are also considered. One of the reasons for the slow growth of renewable energy development is that the fuel price of gas and oil for power plants in Iran was not realistic despite the fuel subsidy, so electricity production in thermal power plants is cost-effective and electricity production from renewable energies such as wind and photovoltaic power plants in a superficial view has no economic justification..

Despite the importance of energy inequality issues in Iran, the depth and extent of this issue have been neglected and have not been examined. The necessity of social justice, having an advanced society, and reducing the effects of energy inequality in the economic, social, and cultural growth and development in a country, cause this issue to be investigated. The goal of this study is to identify and evaluate the factors that play an important role in energy inequality. Hence, this study investigated the impact of economic-social parameters on energy inequality by using the combined data method for 31 countries during 2009-2020. This research results show that three factors of population, energy price, and GDP have a negative and significant effect on the inequality of energy consumption. Also, variables such as government current expenditures and education have a significant and positive effect on energy consumption inequality. On the other hand, urbanism and development expenditures of the government have no noticeable relation with energy inequality

One of the effective factors influencing the interaction of individuals with the environment is ecological attitudes which have a key role in forming and changing environmental behaviors. Due to the increasing consumption of energy resources in Iran, the intensive need for energy, the limits of resources, and other environmental problems, it is really needed to study the impact of ecological attitudes on environmental behaviors, especially those in the field of optimal energy consumption. Therefore, the main question of the article is: what effects do ecological attitudes have on the realization of optimal energy consumption behavior? To do this, the present paper is based on the paradigm of the ecological attitudes of Dunlap, Catton, and Van Liere. Research data was collected using a questionnaire and a statistical sample of 440 residents of Sanandaj City by cluster sampling. Questionnaire validity was assessed using the factor analysis technique and KMO calculation and its reliability was assessed by calculating Cronbach's alpha. The main hypothesis is confirmed that there is a significant relationship between ecological attitudes and energy consumption behaviors. In other words, in forming and changing behaviors directed to the consumption of energy, ecological attitudes are very influential. The findings also show that ecological attitudes have great importance among the consumers in Sanandaj City. This importance implies that these consumers devote enough space to environmental behaviors in their socio-cultural lifestyles and are aware that life has an important part to do with the environment.

Investigating the relationship between oil revenues and financialization in countries with abundant natural resources is particularly important. Considering the dependence of Iran's economy on oil rent, this paper examines the effect of oil revenues on financialization. The simultaneous equations system approach and time series data for 1979 through 2018 were used to analyze the relationship between variables. The research findings show that oil revenues positively and significantly affect financialization. Also, economic growth, human capital, and institutional quality have a negative and significant impact on financialization. But, physical capital and inflation impress positive and significant effects on financialization. Therefore, oil revenues along with the low quality of institutions, extensive sanctions, and oil price fluctuations conduct in an increase in rents and corruption, weakening of property rights, distrust of government policies, and an increase in speculative incentives. A rise in speculative incentives leads to the deviation of capital from the real to the financial sector; finally, the capital transfer to the financial sector also directs to an increase in financialization.

Firm investment is one of the important financial decisions in the economy, which affects the value of companies and the wealth of shareholders, which can result in increasing welfare. Despite neglecting the effects of uncertainty in traditional investment theories, modern theories have introduced various mechanisms for the impact of uncertainty on investment expenditures. Using the daily data of oil prices and the data of 131 companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange market during the period of 2008-2020, the factors affecting the investment of the companies are identified by emphasizing the oil price uncertainty. For this purpose, in the first step, the stochastic volatility model in the framework of the space-state approach is the basis for estimating the oil price uncertainty, and in the next, according to the results of the Hausman endogeneity test, the instrumental variable method is used to estimate the coefficients of the variables affecting investment. The findings indicate that first, the volatility of oil prices has no significant effect on investment. Second, firm size, profitability, inflation, and Tobin’s Q affect investment positively and significantly. Third, the financial leverage, which is reflected in the capital structure polices, has a significant negative effect on investment, meaning that more focus on debt financing leads to less corporate investment expenditures.