Iranian Economic Review
Volume:27 Issue: 71, Spring 2023

This study examined the determinants factors of environmental quality by employing a panel quantile regression to incorporate the effects of economic growth on the quality of the environment and ascertain the validity of the EKC hypothesis within the research background of seven leading African economies over the period 1970 to 2019. The advantage of this method is considering the distributional heterogeneity to provide a detailed description of the linkage between CO2 emissions and driving factors at different emissions levels. The results show that the effects of determinants on CO2 emissions are heterogeneous. Besides, the quantile regression estimate describes the economic growth influence on CO2 emissions to be positive and higher at the 50th quantile than in other classes of quantiles. The square of economic growth tends to have an insignificant effect on the 10th and 25th quantiles but the effect is negative and significant on the 50th, 75th, and 90th quantiles. This justifies the presence of the EKC hypothesis on the 50th, 75th, and 90th quantiles. The empirical results of the study reveal that the EKC hypothesis is supported in these leading African economies. Consequently, policymakers should center on the heterogeneous effects of driving forces on CO2 emissions in different quantiles during the process of carbon emission reductions.

While the “relative Gini coefficient” is one of the common criteria for measuring inequality, people’s perception of inequality seems to go beyond this criterion. Hence, self-reporting of subjective well-being (SWB) is becoming the focus of studies in public policies to improve social welfare. Since such statistics are not currently available in Iran, we are seeking the best possible measure that can reflect the subjective inequality of individuals with existing data. Investigating this issue besides people’s reaction to feeling deprived sheds light on an important attitude of society, and is useful in policy design. This is because as a result of feeling inequitable, some people may stop their economic participation, while others try to be constructive and increase their economic activity. In this regard, we first introduce a criterion for the representation of subjective inequality at the individual level and investigate the results of measuring subjective inequality for nominal and real values, urban and rural areas, as well as by gender groups. We then address the effect of this perceived inequality on the economic participation of individuals. Accordingly, we distinguish the effects of subjective inequality on economic participation by age groups in the range of 15 to 65 years. The results indicate that the subjective inequality among women is greater than men, and is increasing over the years under study. It also appears that the increase in perceived equitability has had its most destructive effect on the middle class, deciles 5-8, while lower deciles react constructively in subjective deprivation.

Gasoline consumption is one of the challenging issues of energy management in Iran. The deficit of domestic production and the need for imports on one hand, and the impact of its consumption on macro-and micro-economic variables, on the other hand, cause gasoline consumption management has become more important. The more accurate, prediction of the trend of gasoline consumption is the more successful consumption management will be. Since gasoline consumption is affected by several parameters and factors, so, forecasting its consumption with high accuracy is difficult. In this paper, one recursive competitive learning method and two deep learning methods are utilized to provide more accurate forecasting of gasoline consumption. Due to the impact of gasoline consumption patterns on seasonal changes, climate, and holidays, different periods are used for training the learning of these approaches, and their efficiency is compared in terms of the standard error metrics. The comparison results show the deep learning approaches and the training patterns with 12 months result in more accurate predictions. Finally, using the best approach and obtained setting, the gasoline consumption in Iran is predicted for the next years, which shows that gasoline consumption will grow 22 percent by 2027.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) member countries have the lowest human development index (0.63) compared with the world average (0.73) and developing countries average (0.68). However, the level of human development varies among the member countries, with the majority of the members categorized under low and medium levels of human development. To explore more information about the effect of financial inclusion on human development across different levels of human development in OIC countries, this study used panel quantile regression to examine the effect of financial inclusion on low, medium, high, and very high human development levels of OIC countries. The results revealed that financial inclusion promotes higher human development in countries with medium human development, because of an increase in income and investment in countries that move from low-income level to medium-income status. Institutions are found to promote higher human development in countries with high and very high human development and negatively affect human development in countries with low and medium human development levels. Also, remittance inflows have a positive effect on human development across all levels of human development but stronger in countries at lower levels of human development. Thus, policymakers in OIC should formulate policies that will promote financial inclusion in low- and meddle-income countries to achieve higher human development. In addition, policymakers should revitalize institutions, especially in countries with low and medium human development levels. Also, the cost of sending remittances into OIC should be reduce to attract more remittances into the member countries.

The study focused on the relationship between external debt management and basic macroeconomic variables performance in Nigeria. The variables for the study span the period 1986-2018 where external debt is the dependent variable while balance of payment, inflation, unemployment exchange rate, and real gross domestic product as independent variables. The study employs cointegration and Vector Error Correction Mechanism (VECM) methods. The findings revealed that balance of payment, inflation, and unemployment were the most important determinants of external debt in the long run in Nigeria. The study concluded with empirical evidence that trends in macroeconomic variables can be used to predict the movement of external debt to a great extent in Nigeria. The study therefore recommended that external borrowing should not be used for purposes that could deflate the economy but should be channeled towards the provision of goods that would increase the level of economic activities.

Nowadays, Tourism plays an important role in the development of many countries including developing countries, such as Iran which has a high capability in this sector. This study examines the economic (GDP per capita and Inflation), social (security and population), and natural factors (total hours of sunshine, total rainfall, natural attractions) on the efficiency of Iran's tourism industry. The data research included statistics and information from 31 provinces of Iran during the years 2011 to 2017 and the analysis technique of fuzzy data envelopment was utilized to calculate the efficiency of the tourism industry; also, the stochastic Tobit panel model was applied to investigate the economic, social and natural factors. The results of fuzzy efficiency in this study illustrated that during 7 years, only four provinces - Ardabil, Tehran, Kohkiluyeh, Boyer-Ahmad, and Gilan- were efficient each year. Moreover, the results showed that during the period of study, among the factors affecting performance, the variables of natural attractions, total rainfall, GDP per capita, inflation, and security have affected the efficiency of Iran's tourism industry. Among these variables, the natural attraction variable had a higher marginal effect than the other variables. Therefore, according to the results, it is suggested that more efforts be made to identify and rehabilitate natural resources and provide more facilities to preserve pristine tourist areas.

Financial resources, particularly at the early stages of entrepreneurship, play a crucial role, and the lack of these resources is recognized as a major obstacle for entrepreneurs. To address this issue, this study examines the impact of financial development on entrepreneurship in 44 developing and developed countries between 2008 and 2018. Private sector credit to GDP and market capitalization to GDP are considered independent variables, while perceptions of corruption, inflation rate, and per capita GDP serve as control variables. The findings of the six estimated models demonstrate the stability of the coefficients and models. The results reveal a positive correlation between private sector credit to GDP and the entrepreneurship index. Additionally, the second index of financial development exhibits a positive and significant relationship with the index of entrepreneurship. The coefficients of the corruption perception index are also positive for both models, indicating that reducing corruption can facilitate the process of entering into business.

In 2015, the United Nations (UN) launched a unique platform, including 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for improving global sustainability. However, it remains ambiguous whether globalization as a result of the UN agenda is beneficial for (or detrimental to) global sustainability. This study aims to investigate if globalization and openness are helpful for sustainability. To this aim, our research estimates the elasticities of sustainable development pillars between two regions of MENA and Europe as a case study from 1971 to 2016. It uses the econometric methodology to develop the SEY model which includes a simultaneous equations system, Granger causality, and VAR. The results show that the spatial sustainability elasticities are mostly positive between MENA and Europe, confirming the constructive role of globalization and openness on sustainability. The policymakers are advised to follow flow-based governance to tackle sustainable development issues. Thus, the unique global agenda of the UN has sufficient capability to improve sustainable development in the world.

The paper aims to examine the effects of human assets on employment in Iran from 1990 to 2019, according to the importance of employment in improving economic welfare and the policymakers' emphasis on job-creating. For this purpose and to analyze the relationship between variables, the ARDL bounds test of Pesaran et al. (2001) and the simultaneous equations system were used. The results showed that human assets have a positive and significant impact on employment; in this way, the increase in human assets leads to an increase in economic growth, which in turn leads to a rise in the demand for labor and, of course, employment. In fact, human assets are the combination index of the three components of education, health, and nutrition. Investing in human assets enhances levels of skill, expertise, worker productivity, and increases the efficiency of the labor force in applying new technology.

Banks learn the core operational vulnerabilities of their businesses and detect the risk indicators according to the operation vulnerabilities. In the last decade, operational risk was the main reason for firms' collapse. Operational risk inside the credit, market, and liquidity risk can affect the banking stability, which has not been studied much so far. This paper aims to investigate the research gaps in operational risk based on the guidelines of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) for operational risk. We study the relationship between banking stability and operational risk by using a comprehensive analysis of the effect of operational risk and size on banking stability. This research uses data from the Iranian banking system over the period 2006–2015. The results show that operational risk has a significantly negative relationship with banking stability, and this is more intensified when we consider the size and complexity of the bank.

Nowadays, digitalization and its risks are the focus of the researchers’ and the corporate sector’s attention, as they represent a new economic and technological frontier. It is extremely important for the corporate sector to formulate approaches to identifying the digitalization risks and financing sources to reduce them. The other important issue is the question of whether modern society can survive the shocks of the digital era, and stay free – the authors forecast where will the process of total digitalization (in the corporate sector first of all) lead modern society. This research is dedicated to this spectrum of tasks. The main article’s focus is to identify digitalization’s generalized risks and to formulate the enterprise’s primary steps, which are effective in the transition to a digital business model. At the same time, the other important result is the estimation of the social and public effects of digitalization and the formulation of ways of declining the emerging risks. Within the research, the main results are the proof that the digitalization risks and benefits are the different degrees of the same results; the identification and systematization of the digitalization basic risks for the corporate sector and the development of universal basic steps to start the enterprise’s business model transforming in the context of digitalization.

Investigation of effective factors in business cycles in Iran, from 2009:3 to 2018: 3, based on the Bayesian approach with emphasis on the effects of financial cycles, is the major purpose of this paper.  At first, using the Hodrick-Prescott filter, we extract business and financial cycles, and then we study the causal relationship between financial and business cycles, using the Granger causality test. There is a two-way causal relationship among the variables (GDP, Tehran Stock Exchange index, land value (per square meter), current government and non-government credits, oil revenues, and current government payments), except for the credits and business cycles. Based on the Bayesian approach, we found that housing sector cycles have negative and current government payment cycles have a positive effect on the business cycles, and both of them are significant. However, Tehran Stock Exchange index, current government and non-government facilities and oil revenues do not have a significant effect on the business cycles.

This paper aims to investigate possible problems of efficiency arising from the joint exploitation of the common gas pool (South Pars - North Dome, the largest natural gas reservoir in the world) by Iran and Qatar. The problem is related to the difference between private incentives and common goals. In the case of non-renewable resources, a Pareto-optimal joint extraction path could exist, but it is unlikely to occur in reality. We studied the difference in incentives for an optimal exploitation path for Iran and Qatar and found that their joint behavior was likely suboptimal from the perspective of the optimal dynamics of gas resource exploitation. In part, this is related to the difference in wealth, and in part to the sanctions against Iran, which have so far not allowed Iran to participate freely in the world market. Considering that the cost of future gas extraction in Russia's northern fields is likely to increase, a delay in the optimal presence of Iranian gas on the world market may lead to a suboptimal sequence of exploitation of various gas fields, which would mean both problems for the profitability of investments in Russia and higher world prices for natural gas in the future.

Based on financial literature, when information asymmetry is present, the agency problem can affect the bank’s lending. In this regard, the contract between the bank and the bank’s agents (who are involved in the lending process) and monetary incentives are very crucial. Furthermore, the career concerns and the characteristics of the bank’s agents can affect the agents’ performance and the effectiveness of the bank’s monetary incentives. This paper investigates the effects of the characteristics of the branch managers on microloans quality in an Iranian commercial bank. Results show that (1) the micro-lending quality of the female branch managers is better than their male counterparts; (2) the quality of micro-lending managed by older branch managers (or branch managers who are closer to retirement age) is poorer than that of their younger counterparts; (3) the higher education of the branch managers improves the quality in micro-lending.

What relation could “Cubism” as an art school establish with economics? How is the integration between artistic intuition and tools of rationality made in the hologram of the thought of Cubism and how is "thinking” related to “economic choice” aesthetically? In general, the style of "Cubism", or in other words, "volumism", emerged in painting and was developed by people such as Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, José Victoriano González-Pérez, better known as Juan Gris and Albert Gleizes.  From a perspective, Cubism is best known in many developing countries such as Iran, Turkey, and India with "Pablo Picasso" (1881-1973), a Spanish painter, sculptor, stage designer, writer, and poet. In this paper, I intend to establish a relationship between cubism with economics as a school of art. I believe my economic analysis could be more realized and understood by emphasizing and putting together pieces of economic variables and "abstract structure at the expense of other pictorial elements, especially by displaying several aspects of the same variable simultaneously and by fragmenting the form of depicted variables". Beside, revenues from the sale of paintings and works of art play a significant role in the gross national product of countries.