مجله سیاست گذاری اقتصادی
سال چهاردهم شماره 28 (پاییز و زمستان 1401)

Next to wheat, rice is considered as the second strategic crop in the world (FAO, 2016). It plays a very important role in the food security; its share in providing daily calories for the people of the world is more than 20% (Cruz et al., 2009). Considering the water shortage in Iran and rice being a water-consuming products in the agricultural sector, it is necessary to provide appropriate solutions and policies to reduce water consumption in the agricultural sector and deal with the recent droughts and water shortages in most regions of Iran. In this regard, the restriction on rice cultivation in non-northern provinces was proposed by the Ministry of Agricultural in order to manage water consumption. According to the literature in the field, this study makes an attempt to investigate the quantitative and welfare aspects of implementing the cultivation restriction policy on the prices of the domestic and imported rice. Then, it calculates the welfare changes in the society. Therefore, in the following, first the research method is stated, and then the obtained results are used to do the necessary analyses and make practical suggestions. Agricultural policy analysis models provide a context in which it is possible to describe the structure of the market and trade of agricultural products, the behavior of economic agents and market actors as well as the effect of agricultural policies (or the effect of economic changes in general) on the structure of the market and trade. The other advantages of this model include its compatibility with different market conditions, its flexibility in modeling different commercial and market policies (quotas, restrictions, tariffs, guaranteed prices, taxes, etc.), and the possibility of carefully examining the effects of imposing restrictions. In this research, the spatial equilibrium model has been used to investigate the effect of rice cultivation restrictions on the market index as well as the producer and consumer welfare. Therefore, the plan proposed by the government was defined as a scenario in the model in such a way that the amount of rice production in all the provinces of the country (except Gilan and Mazandaran) is considered zero. The data of this study were collected from various statistical sources, such as Iran Statistics Center, Central Bank, Ministry of Agricultural, Iran Customs website, Consumer and Producer Protection Organization and FAO official website. Based on the cultivation limitation scenario in the model, the amount of rice production in the country's provinces, except the provinces of Gilan and Mazandaran, was considered to be zero. As a result of applying this scenario, the amount of domestic production will decrease by 641 thousand tons, i.e., a 32.6% decrease. This decrease in supply increases the price of domestic rice and, thus, increases the production in the remaining two provinces. That is, the amount of production in Gilan and Mazandaran Provinces increases by 2.2% and 2.6%, respectively. Also, applying this policy will increase the supply price by 59.3% and 78.5%, respectively.Based on the estimated model and as a result of the decrease in the market demand, the welfare of the society will decrease by 23.7%. The greater percentage of this reduction belongs to the welfare of rice producers in the provinces where rice planting restrictions have been imposed. This is because the area under rice cultivation is reduced by 31.4%. If the amount of water consumption per hectare of rice is considered to be at least 15 thousand cubic meters, the implementation of the restrictions policy can save three billion cubic meters in the whole country. Also, the lost prosperity per cubic meter will have a value of 1590 Tomans per hectare. Therefore, for the economic justification of this restriction, the saved water should create at least this amount of welfare. If the plan to restrict rice cultivation is implemented, domestic rice production will decrease by 32.6% and demand by 7.5%. On the other hand, the import of this product will increase by 47.5%, which, according to the average price in the year 2022, will require 347 million dollars to allocate. The implementation of this policy will lead to an increase in the supply price in Gilan and Mazandaran Provinces by 69%, while the supply increase in these two provinces will be only 2.5%. Since there is a limit of arable land in these two provinces, increasing the supply will face a serious challenge. Due to the decrease in the demand and domestic supply, the welfare of the society will also decrease by 23.7 percent, which will have a much greater effect on the producer’s side. Also, estimates show that the amount of welfare that is saved per cubic meter of water as a result of not cultivating rice will be 1590 Tomans. Therefore, the substitute use of water should create at least this amount of welfare for the society.

One of the first steps towards sustainable development is to establish equality between and within generations. In other words, sustainable development requires improving the welfare of the poor people of the society to reduce inequality. Inequality makes it difficult to achieve development in different ways such as the destruction of capital and social cohesion and the weakening of national security. This is because it prevents political stability. Moreover, inequality has a serious negative effect on the development of society by preventing capital formation and human development. Economic equality has a higher importance in countries with ethnic and religious diversity like Afghanistan. It has a major role in destroying the social cohesion of the society. On the one hand, the incentive for inequality of opportunities increases the interests and benefits of the governing groups, and, on the other hand, inequality is considered immoral and attributed to privileged groups and their rent-seeking. One of the important issues in Afghanistan seems to be the unequal distribution of development among different provinces of the country. Therefore, the first step in planning regional development and achieving more balanced growth and development in Afghanistan is to investigate the current situation of different provinces according to the degree of their development. The present research aims to investigate the difference in the level of development in Afghanistan in 2015 and 2019. Development can be measured based on various criteria such as income, literacy, education, health, physical and communication infrastructure. Thus, the degree of development in Afghanistan's provinces was examined by combining different criteria whose data could be accessed.

This study provided a new methodological instrument to supervise the development process of different areas in Afghanistan. The differences in the development level of 34 provinces of Afghanistan were examined by a three-step approach, including the selection of the development indicators, calculation of the degree of development in the provinces, and analysis of regional changes. Therefore, the TOPSIS technique, which is a ranking method, was used to understand the level of development and their spatial equality. It should be noted that the TOPSIS technique is a practical instrument to select and rank different alternatives. The data about the indicators were collected from the statistics of the World Bank, the United Nations, and the Central Bureau of Statistics and Information of Afghanistan.

According to the results, Kabul Province had the first rank of development in both periods. The development of Kabul decreased in 2019 compared to 2015 and reached 0.5280 from one. The level of development also decreased in other provinces of Afghanistan, except for Kunduz, Herat, and Helmand. The classification of Afghanistan's provinces into developed, developing, and underdeveloped categories indicates that only Kabul is a developed province. Most of the provinces of Afghanistan are in the developing category with a short distance from the underdeveloped ones. The changes in many provinces included in this category are similar to those in Kabul Province, but they cannot improve their conditions or maintain their previous situation. In general, development has not improved in this country considering that the average development of the provinces did not increase in 2019 compared to 2015, and the standard deviation of the country's development did not decrease either. As the gap between the most developed and the least developed provinces increases, the intensity of regional inequality and imbalance increases too.

According to the results, the policies adopted in Afghanistan did not improve the initial unequal conditions; rather, it worsened them. What has been achieved in limited areas has not penetrated to the bottom and has only been intensified through creating divisions in the center-periphery situation. Most of the small material and physical resources are concentrated in Kabul Province, and the severe poverty of the surrounding provinces has been neglected. However, the severe economic inequality between urban and rural areas and the center and periphery is only one example of the inequality that this country is faced with. Inequality can also be proposed and investigated in other areas such as social status and acceptability, power, working conditions, accessibility to job opportunities, and the selection right, which requires further research. To reduce poverty and inequality, it is necessary to pay attention to development programs. In this regard, planning for easier and fairer access to health and treatment facilities and primary education is very helpful. The expansion of educational and health services in poor areas helps to break the cycle of poverty and reduce inequalities by increasing their capabilities.

The problem of water shortage has caused countries to pay attention to the water used in the production of products and their other advantages in the production of goods and services. This has to do with the water consumed in the production of imported or exported products. Although most of this water generally remains in the producer country, it is required in production processes. This paper seeks to calculate the amount of direct and indirect water consumed in the exported goods and service production in Iran. In addition, the amount of water saved on the imported products for intermediate and final uses is calculated.

An input-output model is developed to measure the direct and indirect virtual water that is required for exported and imported products. The latest survey based on the input-output table of Iran for the year 2016 is employed as the database of the research. The rest of the data are obtained from the statistical yearbook of the country for the year 2016.

The symmetrical input-output table of Iran for the year 2016 has been prepared for 89 activities. This table was the basis for the research calculations. According to the results, the total imported commodities of the country were over 2662.56 trillion Rials, whereas the total export of the country in 2016 was 3008.85 trillion Rials. Thus, the trade balance of the country was 366.29 trillion Rials. About half of the imported goods and services were consumed as intermediate demand, and the other half were final demand. The majority of the imports consisted of the products used for the production of machinery and equipment not classified elsewhere in the amount of 254.5 trillion, which was 9.6% of the country's total imports in the year 2016. In contrast, the extraction of crude oil and natural gas was in thefirst place with the value of 1280.05 trillion Rials, which constituted 42.54% of the country's exports in this year.In addition, according to the results, the virtual water export of the country in 2016 was 8514.59 million cubic meters, compared to the country's virtual water import of 15062.83 million cubic meters in the year. So, the country's trade balance of virtual water in this year was -6548.24 cubic meters, which leads the country to be a net importer of virtual water.It is notable that, in contrast to the positive trade balance, the balance of the virtual water trade was negative. To investigate this circumstance, one should note that the production of 353.4 thousand Rials worth of exported products needed one cubic meter of water. However, the country was exempted from one cubic meter of water for 176.8 thousand Rials worth of imported products. On the other hand, the country attempted to import products that need more water in contrast to export products that need less one. So, the imported products of the country were about two times more water-intensive than the exported ones. Based on the calculations, due to the high correlation between the direct water coefficient of the activities and their water multipliers, the correlation coefficient of these two indicators was 0.95. Meanwhile, the activity of agricultural and garden crops, with the highest direct coefficient of water intensity, had the highest multipliers of water intensity as well. Thus, despite the export not achieving the first rank, the import and trade balance ranked first by a long distance among 89 production activities in 2016.The correlation coefficient of the virtual water multipliers of the sectors with the value of their exports and imports were -0.05 and 0.12, respectively. Thus, in the sectors where the multipliers of water are higher, there was relatively less export, whereas the products of these sectors were relatively more imported. The lower multipliers indicate that other factors have also been involved to determine the amount of exports and imports.

According to the findings of the research, the water intensity of products was relatively considered in the foreign trade of Iran. So, the imported products need two times more virtual water compared to the exported ones. As a result, in contrast to the positive trade balance of the country, there was a negative virtual water balance. However, due to the attention paid to other factors in the foreign trade, the correlation coefficient between the virtual water multipliers of the sectors with the value of their exports and imports is small. In addition, some activities deal with water in nature. As a result, they have high water multipliers. According to this characteristic, along with the promotion of water efficiency in production processes, it is necessary to avoid exporting products with high water multipliers as well as importing these products.

The financial sector plays an important role in a modern economy by ensuring financial intermediation, i.e., the channeling of funds from savers to investors. A sound and efficient financial sector encourages the accumulation of savings and enables their allocation to the most productive investments, thus supporting innovation and economic growth. In Iran, banks are the main financial intermediaries. Banking credit is also used to finance the needs of households, in particular to smooth out their consumption pattern over time and help them invest in assets. Banks and financial institutions are essential in the funding process, and their major role cannot be ignored in the process of economic development; it is the most important portal executed by the state through its economic policies.The evolution of the banking sector is a key indicator of the vitality of the economic system. The role of banks in the business sector is clear through their various services which greatly help to promot economic and financial operations. However, the real role of commercial banks is measured by the primary functions of financial intermediation, accepting deposits and granting loans, which are addressed in the context of credit policies. One of the important goals of financial institutions, especially banks, is to create more efficiency in allocating resources and providing facilities. However, it should be noted that banks do not operate in a vacuum; their activities are mainly influenced by environmental factors, especially macroeconomic factors, which can be taken into account when making decisions on the country's monetary policy. The innovation of the present study is the use of a non-linear approach to investigate the effect of financial and economic variables on the performance of the banking system regarding bank facilities and bank deposits.

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the effect of financial and economic variables on bank deposits and facilities. To investigate this issue, the logit smooth transition regression (LSTR) model, which is one of the regime change models, was used with the statistical data of the 2011-2020 period for 15 banks admitted to the Tehran Stock Exchange.In this paper, among the set of economic and financial variables, inflation rate, economic growth, exchange rate, bank deposit rate, facility rate, the volume of facilities, deposits of the previous period and the volume of bank capital were selected as the best exogenous variables whose dynamics were already identified. LSTR model is a nonlinear econometric model that is able to capture the movement of some economic variables and adjust them every moment based on the behavior of economic agents. The main advantage of LSTR models is the assumption that the changes in economic aggregates are influenced by changes in the behavior of many different agents and that it is highly unlikely for all the agents to react simultaneously versus certain economic signals.

The results obtained from this study showed that the inflation rate variable leads to non-linear relationships among the variables of GDP, exchange rate, capital and bank assets, interest rate of deposits and facilities, volume of deposits and bank facilities. In the estimated model, it was observed that, if the inflation growth rate per year is more than 10%, the impacts of the research variables on the volume of deposits and bank facilities will be different. In addition, the obtained results indicated that the variables of economic growth, exchange rate, deposit rate and facility rate had non-linear and different effects on bank deposits and facilities. Based on the results, the transmission variable considered in this study in the regime with high fluctuations has high co-movement with the fitted values of the model. In fact, considering the conditions mentioned in the model, Periods 1 to 20 and 40 to 70 were under the regime with high fluctuations, and periods 20 to 40 and -70 to 80 were under the regime with low fluctuations.

According to the results of the research, monetary and macroeconomic variables strongly affect the volume of deposits and facilities in Iran's banking network. This means that, with the change in the inflation rate, the exchange rate, the deposit rate and the bank facility rate change too. Therefore, the monetary authorities can change the amount of money by changing the monetary instruments and have a great impact on the deposits and facilities granted by the country's banking network. In this regard, the independence of the central bank from the government along with the development of policy tools for the monetary authority in order to prevent the imposition of the results of the government's budget policies on the monetary policies of the central bank is a way of making the monetary policies efficient in medium and long terms.

The present study aims to investigate the impact of unilateral economic sanctions of the United States of America on Iran's employment during 1991-2020. Nowadays, the issue of employment and providing decent jobs is one of the major development goals and a main concern of policy makers and economists. Moreover, job creation is a major strategy to reduce poverty and improve well-being and thus to generate income and increase demand for goods and services. Nevertheless, with the advancement of science and technology and the specialization of jobs, the prospect of employment in most developing countries, including Iran, has become a major and fundamental problem. Several factors affect employment, one of which is definitely economic sanctions that cause social and economic inequalities as well as the reduction of economic growth through the restriction of the export and import of goods.

This research examines the effects of the economic sanctions imposed by the United States on Iran's employment during 1991 to 2020. To this end, the synthetic control method (SCM) is applied. At the first step, the total employment is measured as the outcome variable. Then, a synthetic control unit is built for Iran, by which the expected employment occurs under a scenario with no sanctions after 2005. Then, the effects of sanctions on employment are estimated. The synthetic control method is a statistical method used to evaluate the effect of an intervention in comparative studies. It involves the construction of a weighted composite of groups that are used as a control group to compare the treated unit .Using the weighted mean of units as a comparison avoids the model-dependent extrapolation on which regression results are often based. This research shows the potential gains achieved by using synthetic controls in comparative studies. The effects of the intervention may have been randomly generated, in which case it will not be statistically significant. Therefore, in the next step, the inferential techniques proposed by Abadi et al. (2015 and 2010) are used to support the estimates of the synthetic control method and evaluate the significance of the results.

Considering the importance of employment in the social and economic life of any country, especially developing countries, international economic policies have been given almost as much attention as national policies to expand employment opportunities in less developed countries and have always been one of the concerns of planners. Therefore, it seems necessary to make a serious effort to identify the factors affecting employment, which can achieve the prior goals of employment and eliminate unemployment. One of the factors affecting Iran's employment in recent years is economic sanctions. The present study utilizes the synthetic control method (SCM) to investigate the effects of sanctions on Iran's employment. Through SCM, the difference in employment between the treated country (actual Iran) and the synthetic one (synthetic Iran) is estimated. Synthetic Iran is constructed as a convex composite of the countries in the control group in such a way that it is most similar to the actual Iran in terms of the predictor values of the pre-sanction outcome variable.

The study shows the intensification of the economic sanctions imposed on Iran since 2006 and the exposure of new sectors in the Iranian economy. There were thousands of declines in the employment of Iran until 2015, which is about -7% in employment of “actual Iran” and “synthetic Iran”. However, with the JCPOA agreement in 2015 and as a result of the resumption of trade, the employment rate decreased to 749 thousand, which was 41.3% in 2018. Yet, by Trump's victory in the elections and America's withdrawal from the JCPOA, and the increased pressure of sanctions, the gap between synthetic Iran and actual Iran reached its peak in 2020, i.e. 1966 thousand people (a 48.9% decrease). This was due to a sharp decrease in employment. The results also indicate that the synthetic Iran was a good reflection of the actual Iran in the pre-intervention period. The increase in economic costs from 2018 to 2020 also shows the large and long-term negative effect of the intervention (sanctions) on Iran's employment during the sanctions period. In addition, the placebo tests show that the results are statistically significant at the 10% level. Iran had the largest treatment effects and the highest ratio of MSPE after the intervention compared to before the intervention. The findings are also robust to the composition of the donor pool and the start of the sanctions, which is because the results are similar when the countries with positive weights are removed from the donor pool one at a time or when the treatment event is moved to 2004. However, the results are not sensitive to the composition of the donor pool or to the start of the sanctions.

In spite of the fact that Iran's socio-economic development plans and other effective documents emphasize achieving high, stable and sustainable economic growth rates, the average real GDP growth in the last four decades has been less than 1.3 percent. This low growth rate, along with its severe fluctuations, shows that the development plans and policies administrated by the government were not successful in achieving such economic growth rates. So, they seriously require comprehensive review and reforms. During a given period, many countries on the same level as Iran in terms of per capita income have experienced significant economic growth and have been able to bring the level of per capita income (and, as a result, economic welfare of the people) very close to the pioneer countries in development. But Iran’s per capita income still has a "big gap" despite its high and sometimes unique capacities in geographical, civilizational, cultural and economic diversities.  Therefore, it is needed to identify and explain the causes of the stunted growth of Iran's economy and, accordingly, to propose solutions to accelerate economic growth and convergence of per capita income and catch up with developed countries. For this purpose, a growth diagnostic approach leads to a defensible and systematic common understanding of the main causes of Iran's low economic growth.

The growth diagnostics approach which was first proposed by Hausmann et al. (2005), is a framework for identifying the most important specific obstacles to the economic growth of a country. This approach is consistent with the logic of endogenous growth models but, unlike these models, it does not assume a fixed set of growth determinants for all countries. Instead, it lists all the potential factors, including economic and non-economic, that affect growth in a long list. This approach then makes a decision tree to identify a limited number of key factors. In addition to being more flexible than competing frameworks, this framework does not violate the principles and methodology of economics. The decision tree process begins with this question ‘What is the cause of the low level of private investment and entrepreneurship in the country?’ In response to this question, which can be "the low social efficiency of investment" or "the high cost of financing", each of these two paths is broken into narrower branches and, finally, it identifies the causes of low economic growth. The main function of growth diagnostics approach is to identify the causes of low economic growth in a country. In this research, however, we applied the HRV decision tree, which is because we believe this tree can lead us to the most important problems in the Iranian economic growth.

Results and Discussion :

According to the HRV (2005), we classified our findings for the final causes of low economic growth of Iran into seven categories as reported in the table below.   Causes of the lag in Iran’s economic growth No Categories Causes Policy implications 1 Environment • Drastic Increase in Pollution and Destruction of the Environment • Continuous Reduction of Biological Capacity ü  Environmental Protection 2 Human capital • High Migration of Human Capital from the Country • Little Arrival of Immigrants with High Human Capital • Low-Quality Education System • Inappropriate Access to The Internet in Schools • Inadequate Development of Employee Training • Low-Quality Management Schools ü  Improve the Quality of Education and Skills Development ü  Wage Based Growth 3 Infrastructures • Roads Quality • Quality of Electricity Supply • Ports Quality • Aviation Quality ü  Improve Public-Private Partnerships ü  Improve Social Capital 4 Micro risks • Weakness in Property Rights • Low Government Efficiency • Heavy Burden of Government Regulations • Inadequate Protection of the Interests of Small Shareholders • Weak Support for Investors • Lack of Transparency ü  Good Governance 5 Macro risks • Deficit of the Government's Operating Balance • High Government Debts • High and Fluctuating Inflation Rates ü  Good Governance 6 Externalities of information and coordination • Weakness of Competition in the Domestic Market • Limited Market Dominance • Expensive and Time-Consuming Customs Procedures • High Trade Tariffs • Severe Non-Tariff Barriers • Low Capacity for Talents Saving • Low Capacity for Talents Attraction • The Negative Effect of Taxation On Labour Incentives ü  Market-Oriented Policies ü  Trade Liberalization 7 Financial intermediation • Poor Financial Access • Poor Life Insurance • Poor International Financing • Severe Financial Repression • Arbitrary Sectoral Discrimination Without Plans ü  Balanced Financial Development   .

Conclusion:

 In this article, applying growth diagnostics approach and HRV decision tree, several factors were identified as the obstacles to Iran's economic growth. They include the quality of human capital, the quality of infrastructures, and micro and macro risks both of which refer to the economic management policies of the country, namely good governance indicators and policies. In the financial sector, financial repression and arbitrary sectoral discriminations are the most important factors in the lack of balanced financial development to accelerate economic growth. This set of determinants has been formed under the severe lack of a correct and clear trend in policy making for economic growth and development.

Tourism is a social, cultural and economic phenomenon that plays a vital role in the economic and social development of many countries. The tourism phenomenon has a special direct and indirect relationship with different aspects of human life. Inbound tourism has a positive effect on the economy of destinations by affecting the income of the residents, creating jobs, attracting investment, and increasing the demand for local goods. However, the development of tourism in a destination can lead to some negative aspects, which can cause serious problems after it becomes an established activity. Increasing health expenditures, as an indicator of the health status of communities, is one of the negative effects of tourism. In recent years, tourism and health expenditures have considerably grown in most countries. The GDP per capita is one of the important factors to determine the amount of health expenses. In the tourism literature, few studies have investigated the effect of inbound tourism on the health status of residents. Since there is no consensus on the effects of inbound tourism on the health of the host community, this study aims to investigate the effects of the tourist congestion, carbon dioxide emissions per capita and GDP per capita on health expenditures per capita. To this end, the non-linear relationship between the GDP per capita and the dependent variable is taken into account.

In this study, the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) was used to investigate the effects of tourist congestion, GDP per capita and carbon dioxide emissions on the health expenditures per capita in 30 OIC and oil-exporting countries. These countries were selected based on the maximum available data during the period of 2004-2018. To estimate the model, the index of the ratio of inbound tourism to the population of the host community was used for the tourist congestion variable. The GMM econometric method was used owing to its ability to solve the problems of possible endogeneity, autocorrelation and heteroskedasticity in the variables. In this study, the cross-sectional dependence was examined by Pesaran’s cross-sectional dependence test (2004), and the stationarity of the variables was checked by Pesaran’s unit root test (2007). The cointegration between the variables was also checked by the Pedroni cointegration test and the Kao cointegration test. The validity of the instruments was assessed by the Sargan test, and the lack of correlation of the second order and the general validity of the estimation was investigated by the Arellano-Bond test and the Wald test, respectively. The data of this study were obtained from the World Bank Database and analyzed with the Eviews 12 software.

Based on the results of Pesaran’s unit root test, the variables of GDP per capita and health expenditure per capita were non-stationary at level. Moreover, the results of the the Pedroni cointegration test, the Kao cointegration test and the unit root test on the model residual term showed that the estimate was not spurious. The results of estimating the research model with the GMM method showed that the variables were statistically significant at the significance level of 1%. The variables of carbon dioxide emission per capita and logarithm of tourist congestion had a negative and significant effect on health and caused an increase in health expenditures. The GDP per capita variable had a nonlinear inverted U-shaped relationship with health expenditure. According to this finding, the increase in the GDP per capita after reaching the maximum point was 43405 international dollars, reducing the health expenditures. After the maximum point, the increase of GDP per capita is expected to make investing in the infrastructure of the health sector possible and provide easier access to health services. Therefore, it can be expected that the increase in GDP per capita will eventually lead to the improvement of the health status of the society. The results of the Sargan test and the Arellano-Band test confirmed the efficiency of the used tool and the lack of correlation of the second order residual. The Wald test also confirmed the validity of the results of the estimated model.

Based on the results of this study, an increase in GDP per capita before reaching the maximum point causes an increase in health expenditures. After reaching the turning point, however, it reduces the health expenditures per capita. Since the per capita GDP of some countries, including Iran, has a significant distance from the maximum point, there is a good opportunity to achieve the downward range of the inverted U in smaller amounts of per capita GDP by investing in health infrastructure. Therefore, before reaching this point, it is recommended to allocate a part of the tax revenue from the top income deciles to investment in the health sector in order to improve the health of the society. Furthermore, in order to reduce the pollution caused by the GDP of polluting industries, the government should adopt policies to prevent environmental damages from directly endangering the health of people. Also, for the reduction of the adverse effect of tourism on health, a tax is suggested to be collected from incoming tourists. Moreover, it is recommended to include environmental and occupational health methods in the design, construction and utilization of tourism industry facilities. It is also suggested that a part of foreign exchange income from the tax on inbound tourists be allocated to the monitoring, control and prevention of epidemic diseases as well as research on diseases and occupational hazards related to the tourism industry. Finally, it is suggested to create a system for registering disease outbreaks in the tourist population and evaluate the disease burden attributed to tourism.

The financial system of an economic enterprise, in simple terms, is a set of financial institutions, financial instruments and financial markets that are responsible for financial decisions. Small and medium-sized enterprises use various financial instruments to provide the financial resources that they need. They also use the surplus funds provided by financial institutions and other economic enterprises for investment purposes and provided to applicants in the form of facilities and loans. This compensates the budget deficit of small and medium enterprises. In this article, the methods of financing small and medium enterprises and the risk associated with each method are studied and analyzed.

This research addresses the comparative analysis of financing methods of small and medium enterprises (SME) with a focus on OECD countries. By reviewing the research literature and using the opinions of experts in the field of financing, the most important risks of small and medium enterprises are identified and then classified. In the final parts of this study, the types of risks are identified through interviews with financing experts and use of a questionnaire. The risks of financing methods are prioritized, and seven financing methods are ranked in terms of credit risk.In the second part of the paper, by using factor analysis and the method of principal components, credit risk indicators are aggregated into a single index (representing the credit risk variable). Then, this variable is included in the decision tree as a dependent variable and the sub-indices are considered as independent variables. Decision tree is one of the most famous and oldest methods of making a classification model. It is a non-parametric method of classifying variables and includes various algorithms. In order to design a decision tree, the CHAID method is used. This method is also known for identifying automatic chi-square interactions in each step. The predictor variable that has the highest correlation with the dependent variable is used in the model and the decision tree.

By reviewing how small and medium enterprises are financed in OECD countries, it was found that those countries use various methods for financing small and medium enterprises. In many countries, there has been an increasing trend in the share of long-term loans compared to short-term credits. Based on the evidence provided, there is a significant difference between alternative financing methods in terms of the average scores of credit, financial, legal, social and environmental risks. Based on these findings, the credit risk in the method of financing small and medium enterprises through the facility channel is higher than in other methods, and the lowest credit risk associated with the method of financing is from the company's internal resources.According to the results of the decision tree, the financing method of small and medium enterprises has also been effective as a control variable on the level of credit risk of these companies. Management skills in small and medium enterprises are the most important factor to explain the credit risk trend of these companies. Therefore, in order to develop a credit risk control strategy in this group of companies, the suppliers of these companies' financial resources should first pay attention to the ability and management skills of these companies. Based on historical records, if the managers of small and medium enterprises do not have acceptable skills in running the company, it is likely that the company will not be able to fulfill its obligations in the near future.The quality of financial statements is also very important in predicting the credit risks of this group of companies. Based on this, banks and other institutions that provide financial resources for small and medium-sized companies should evaluate various indicators of the quality of financial statements in these companies in order to develop a suitable strategy to reduce risks. Dividend policies and current ratio of the company should also be considered in the credit risk control strategy of small and medium enterprises.

Considering that the goal is to reduce credit risk, financiers should try to increase the contribution of small and medium enterprises in financing their costs. If the goal is to reduce the total risk, however, the financing of small and medium-sized enterprises by business angels is less risky, and business angels should be used to finance small and medium-sized enterprises. The government can also help increase the investment of business angels in small and medium enterprises by creating various incentives, including tax incentives.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of banks' liquidity shock on their excess reserves and the business cycles in Iran's economy. In order to benefit from the functional tasks of the banking system in the real sector of the economy, it is necessary to control the liquidity in the hands of the bank. The liquidity management by the bank includes predicting liquidity needs and providing them at the lowest possible cost. The main reason for the liquidity risk is that most bank resources are provided from short-term deposits, while the bank facilities are used to invest in assets that have a relatively low degree of liquidity. Therefore, a main task of the bank should be creating a balance between short-term financial obligations and long-term investments. Maintaining insufficient amounts of liquidity exposes the bank to the risk of not being able to fulfill its obligations and pushes it toward bankruptcy. Also, maintaining large amounts of liquidity causes inefficient allocation of resources, reduction of the interest rate on deposits and, as a result, losing the market.

In order to analyze the results, the dynamic stochastic general equilibrium method was used in terms of the structure of the banking system in the period of 1989-2020 based on the frequency of the seasonal data. In the statistical analysis section, the impacts of the impulse from liquidity on the surplus bank reserves, business cycles, and a set of banking and macroeconomic variables were compared and evaluated. The current research model has five parts including household sectors, producers of intermediate goods and final goods, banking sector, government and central bank. The household sector maximizes the expected discounted utility function with respect to the inter-period budget constraint. Intermediary companies seek to minimize the production cost function, and the company producing the final product deals with pricing based on Rotenberg's price stickiness theory. In order to maximize the expected profit function, the banking sector makes its decisions to determine the optimal interest rates of deposits and facilities for both households and companies. It should be mentioned that regarding bank rates for deposits and facilities, although the range of interest rates for deposits and facilities is communicated to the banks, the banks act based on other variables. They have the option to consider the maximum expected profit function based on their requirements, such as the amount of the fixed balance in the customer's account of facility reception or the interest paid to depositors. Finally, the government and the central bank are face with an inter-period budget constraint.

Based on the obtained results, the momentum of liquidity induced by the banking system has led to an increase in their surplus reserves and the occurrence of business cycles and deviations in production. Also, the liquidity shock has led to an increase in the inflation rate and exchange rate in the economy. It is recommended to eliminate the effect of liquidity shocks of the banking system on the economy by using precautionary and unconventional policies. In order to improve the relationship between the Central Bank and the banks, managing the overdrafts of the banks from the Central Bank by guaranteeing the overdrafts and regular financing is an important and fundamental task in the agenda of the Central Bank. The intelligent monitoring of the facilities and transactions in the banking network by the Central Bank can correct the asset and capital structure of banks, improve the risk management system, transparency of financial reporting in banks, organize the non-banking activities of banks and their subsidiaries, and prevent the entry of resources into speculative activities. Also, selling the surplus assets of banks is considered as an important act to reform the functioning of the banking system.

The liquidity shock from the banking system has led to an increase in their excess reserves, the emergence of business cycles and fluctuations in production, and increased inflation rate and exchange rate in the economy. Based on the results, it is recommended to prevent liquidity shocks from the banking system by using conservative and unconventional policies. Since an important part of creating liquidity in the country's economy has been done by banks in the past years, controlling the creation of money and liquidity by banks can play an important role in reducing the growth of liquidity and inflation. Therefore, there is a need for structural reforms and the supervision of the banking system. According to the proposed economic theories and the results obtained from this study, if a change is made in the credit risk, liquidity of commercial banks in money creation, and therefore the profit margin of the banks, monetary policy may be able to directly influence the interest rate in the credit market. In this case, an asymmetry may arise. An increase in the policy-based interest rate always leads to an increase in the interest rate in the credit market because commercial banks have to compensate the costs of re-borrowing and have to earn at least a profit. But if the liquidity risk and credit risk of commercial banks increase due to increased uncertainty, or if the level of banks' requested interest increases, a reduction in the base rate may not be immediately accompanied by a reduction in the credit market rate.

The main purpose of this article is to analyze the moderating effects of corporate governance on the relationship between the financial leverage of the company and economic growth through switching regression. Capital is one of the most important production factors in any business, and entrepreneurs and producers need capital to produce their products or provide their services. Financing is very important for companies because their survival depends on financing. In recent years, the issue of financing projects and economic enterprises has become one of the main challenges for the development of the private sector and, as a result, an obstacle to the acceleration of economic growth. This has added to the problems of production units and companies, especially in the current situation when economic enterprises are faced with recession and most banks face the problem of providing liquidity. Indeed, the issue of financing companies is a basic prerequisite for increasing national production. Without equipping economic enterprises with sufficient resources, one cannot expect an increase in the national production.

This research examines the moderating role of corporate governance in the relationship between financial leverage and the growth of companies. The selected statistical population consisted of the companies accepted in Tehran Stock Exchange active in five major industries including chemical products, pharmaceutical materials and products, automobiles, basic metals and cement, and lime and plaster groups. For the purpose of sampling, the systematic elimination method was used. By applying the necessary restrictions, 102 qualified companies were selected, and statistical analyses were performed on them. Also, the data required for the research in the theoretical foundations section were extracted by the library method and the databases related to the stock exchange, including the new Revard software and the official website of the Stock Exchange Organization in the period of 2011-2013. By using Evioz 9 and Stata 14 software programs, the non-linear effect of corporate governance on the financial leverage and growth of the company was investigated first, and then the threshold level of the statistical sample was examined by forming a panel regression model.

Descriptive results showed that, for ROA and acc variables, intra-group changes are much more than inter-group changes. Therefore, the growth index of companies as well as the acc regressor have more changes over time and have little changes between periods. As for corporate governance (cg) variables, this is the opposite. In other words, corporate governance regressors have had more changes in stages and less change during the studied period. Descriptive statistics of the data for the financial leverage variable (lev) show that this regressor has had almost the same inter-group and intra-group changes during the study period. Therefore, the effect of financial leverage on the growth of companies in a corporate governance regime is negative and significant. This negative relationship arises because the company improves its corporate governance practices and, thus, the management eventually considers debt as a monitoring tool.

Based on the results, with the increase in the level of corporate governance of companies and the rotation of the corporate governance regime from a low-level regime to a high-level regime of governance, the negative effect of financial leverage on the growth of companies is reduced. Regarding this result, it can be argued that an increase in the leverage of companies with a strong corporate governance structure sends a positive message to lenders about the quality of the business unit. This, in turn, reduces the cost of using debts and increases the level of leverage. Also, the comparison of the results of the threshold model with the linear model estimated by the fixed effects method in the relevant tables shows that, according to the acceptance of the hypothesis of the threshold effects of corporate governance in the relationship between financial leverage and the growth of companies, the negative effect of financial leverage on the growth of companies can be at low levels of governance. In this regard, the leverage itself can be used as an effective corporate governance mechanism that regulates managers and forces them to avoid wasting the company's cash flow and direct it towards valuable projects. Therefore, higher leverage reduces the need for a strong corporate governance structure. In general, the results of the research suggest that companies with high governance in Tehran Stock Exchange benefit from the financial leverage better than their lower counterparts.

Banks and capital markets play important roles in the global economy, especially through financing. Recent innovations and increased liberalization in the financial system have led to less disparity of banks and capital markets. Theoretically, these financial institutions are allowed to work together to support companies rather than compete for business. Analyzing the relationship between these financial institutions in a global and dynamic environment is important because the stability of the financial system depends on the ability of these institutions to perform better. Stock market investors convert their assets into stocks and, therefore, need to consider many factors when investing. On the other hand, in developing countries such as Iran, the stock market is less extensive and efficient than in developed countries, and the stock market price is often not close to the real and intrinsic value of those bonds. Considering that the stock exchange and securities organization operate to equip resources and direct them towards useful and productive investments, studying this issue is very important. The liquidity of the financial markets, especially the stock market, affects economic issues, and the shares of companies with higher liquidity are usually less risky for investment. Therefore, examining the factors affecting the liquidity of the stock market as well as the effect of this liquidity on the market power of banks is an important issue. Considering this importance and the studies that have been conducted in this field, the present research seeks to examine the liquidity of the stock market, the market power of banks, and the effect of the liquidity of the stock market on the market power of banks.

In this study, the dynamic panel approach has been used to examine the dynamics of changes, remove the bias of cross-sectional regressions, and make estimations with higher efficiency. The financial data of 20 banks admitted to Tehran Stock Exchange have been used in the period from 2010 to 2020. The banks examined in this research include Hekmat Iranian, Di, Saman, Sarmayeh, Ansar, Ayandeh, Saderat, Mellat, Parsian, Pasargad, Postbank Iran, Tejarat, Middle East, Iran Zamin, Sina, Karafarin, Gardeshgari, Etebari Melal, Eghtesad Novin and Mehr Eghtesad. The research is conducted based on the econometric approach. In order to solve or minimize the problem of endogeneity and correlation among the independent variables, the dynamic panel data estimation approach or the generalized method of moments (GMM) approach is used.

Based on the results obtained from GMM, the effects of amihud illiquidity variables have been estimated with a negative and significant coefficient of -0.0004. Also, the effect of the market power index with an interval (t-1) and a coefficient of 0.341, the effect of bank size with a coefficient of 0.004, the effect of capital adequacy with a coefficient of 0.027 and the effect of profitability with a coefficient of 0.128 on the market power of banks are found positive and significant. Finally, the effect of the financial leverage index has emerged with an insignificant coefficient of - 0.0022.

Despite the significant developments in various scientific fields, human societies are faced with various limitations. Among them, one can mention the collection of various deposits and their appropriate allocation to meet the financial needs of various economic activities. Meanwhile, one of the most important activities in the capital market is banking operations. Banks contribute a major part of funds in circulation in the society; from this point of view, they play a very important role in economic systems. They also have an undeniable role in regulating economic relationships in the society. In this context, the liquidity of stocks is one of the most important criteria for investors. Due to the increasing importance of liquidity, researchers have widely paid attention to the effective factors involved. Therefore, based on the existing theories and literature, this study seeks to answer the questions ‘Does the liquidity of the country's banking sector shares have an effect on its market power?’ and ‘What are the direction and extent of this effect?’. Therefore, we investigate the effect of illiquidity variables, bank size, financial leverage, capital adequacy and profitability on the market power of banks. In this regard, GMM has been used to estimate the research model. Based on the results, the effect of Amihud illiquidity variables is negative and significant. Also, the effect of bank size, capital adequacy and profitability indicators on banks' market power is positive and significant, and the leverage index has no significant effect.

Undoubtedly, macroeconomic policies play a vital role in achieving sustainable economic development, especially during economic crises. The results of the existing studies show that most of them have focused on the role of monetary policy or fiscal policy separately; however, a combination of monetary, fiscal, exchange and trade policies and their interactions have rarely been focused on. Therefore, the present study seeks to investigate the impact of monetary, financial and currency shocks on sustainable economic development in Iran.

In order to achieve the objectives of the research, certain variables were used, including green gross national product (as an indicator of sustainable economic development), government expenditures (as an indicator of fiscal policy), exchange rate (as a currency policy), the degree of trade openness or the totality of exports and imports (as an indicator of trade policy), and wide money supply (as an indicator of monetary policy). Also, the essential data for the period of 2001-2021 were collected from the Central Bank of Iran, and then they were seasonalized. Moreover, in order to analyze the data, the structural vector autoregression (SVAR) model, which is logically based on economic theories, was used to apply constraints and restrictions. The SVAR model makes it possible to evaluate the impact of various dimensions of shocks caused by monetary, financial, foreign exchange and commercial policies on economic stability in Iran. Finally, the research data were analyzed by means of the Eviews software.

The results of the Phillips-Perron test for stationarity showed that the variable of commercial openness is at a stationary level and the variables of gross national green production, government expenditures, exchange rate and wide money supply are stationary after one differentiation. Also, the lowest statistical value of Schwartz-Bizen to determine the optimal interval belongs to the first interval, and the optimal interval is model 1. In addition, the statistical values ​​of both the effect test and the maximum eigenvalue are smaller than the critical values ​​at the 95% level. As a result, there is no cumulative or long-term relationship between research variables. The results showed that the monetary policy index (broad money supply) has a negative effect on the sustainable economic development index because an increase in money supply leads to a decrease in the value of the domestic currency and an increase in the price of domestic goods. This, in turn, will lead to a reduction in total demand, and production and has a negative effect on sustainable economic development. So, if a shock of 1% is introduced to the money supply, the green national gross production will decrease by 0.08% in the first period and 0.23% in the second period. After that, the effect of this shock is neutralized during the fifth period and becomes zero. Also, the financial policy index (government spending) has a positive effect on the sustainable economic development index (green national production). This happens due to an increase in the government spending which leads to a corresponding increase in investment, production, gross domestic product and eventually a high level of sustainable economic development. So, if a shock of 1% is introduced to the government's expenses, the green national gross production will increase by 0.04% in the first period, 0.11% in the second period, and 0.16% in the third period. After that, the effect of this shock is neutralized during the fourth period and becomes zero. In addition, the index of foreign exchange policy (exchange rate) negatively affects the index of sustainable economic development (GDP) because an increase in the exchange rate leads to lower values of the domestic currency and higher costs of domestic goods. This, in turn, lead to a decrease in the total demand, and production rate and has a negative effect on sustainable economic development. So, if a shock of 1% is introduced to the exchange rate, the green national gross production will decrease by 0.11% in the first period and 0.16% in the second period. Finally, since trade liberalization leads to indiscriminate imports, misallocation of financial resources, reduction of production and trade and lower levels of sustainable economic development in developing countries, the trade policy index (degree of trade openness) has a negative effect on the sustainable economic development index (green national product). Accordingly, if a shock of 1% is introduced to the degree of commercial openness, the green national gross production will decrease by 0.03% in the first period and 0.08% in the second period.

The results showed that the variables of expansionary monetary policy, exchange rate fluctuation and open trade policy have negative effects on economic sustainable development. However, expansionary financial policy can positively affect sustainable growth.  Considering the negative effect of expansionary monetary policy on sustainable economic development and due to sustainable economic sanctions, the most important priority should be given to providing resources for the banking system. To achieve sustainable economic development, government and state-owned companies are recommended to borrow less from banks, the government should pay more attention to the central bank, and the banks should be allowed to provide credit resources for productive enterprises under the supervision of the government. Also, exchange rate fluctuations have an unclear effect on sustainable economic development. Reforming the currency system and exchange rate should thus be one of the government's priorities. Due to the failure of the government to control the exchange rate during currency crises, the establishment of the currency exchange is beneficial for the economy and can prevent sudden jumps in the exchange rate. Finally, since the open trade policy has a positive effect on sustainable economic growth, a comprehensive export development program should be implemented by modifying and reinforcing both the macroeconomic environment and the institutional environment.