پژوهشنامه اقتصادی
پیاپی 86 (پاییز 1401)

Informational asymmetry between institutional and individual traders is one of the widely examined issues in financial markets. The preference of each of these groups to attain personal information may provide other traders with important information. Novice traders, seeking opportunities for profit, can benefit by aligning themselves with the more informed group and monitoring their trading activities.This study aims to determine the winner group at attaining more personal information, by breaking down the probability of informed trading (PIN), a widely accepted metric for assessing informational risk, into two main components: the probability of informed trading of individuals (DPIN) and the probability of informed trading of institutions (SPIN). Moreover, the relation between these two components and the stock return has been tested using Fama-MacBeth two-step regression (1973). Our research draws on data from 35 companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange and Iran's Fara-Bourse, spanning 19 seasons, from December 2015 to October 2020. Our findings challenge previous studies, revealing that institutional traders possess a distinct informational advantage over individual traders. Furthermore, our findings show that the effect of DPIN and SPIN on stock return is not statistically significant.

The theoretical literature on fiscal decentralization has identified several channels for the impact of this policy on economic growth. Some studies emphasize the positive effect of fiscal decentralization on economic growth, while others consider it as a potential factor reducing economic growth following its implementation. Due to this theoretical ambiguity, several studies in recent decades have attempted to empirically examine the effect of fiscal decentralization on economic growth. The findings of these studies are diverse and, in some instances, contradictory. To examine and conclude from these different results, this study uses a multilevel meta-analysis approach. To do so, we conducted a comprehensive review of empirical studies in the relevant field and applied a meta-analysis protocol for data selection. Ultimately, we identified 23 cross-country studies comprising 506 regressions and 635 coefficients for analysis. Studies that deviated from the protocol or lacked sufficient information for data extraction were excluded. The combined results of these individual studies, after accounting for publication bias and moderator variables, reveal that fiscal decentralization has a small and positive effect on economic growth. In addition, the results of this study showed that the indicators used to measure fiscal decentralization and economic growth, the period and sample of the countries under review, and the presence or absence of variables such as human capital, physical capital, investment rate, foreign investment, tax revenue, education, unemployment rate, political stability, population growth, urbanization rate, and public sector size in the regression models utilized in individual studies Significantly contribute to explaining the heterogeneity observed in their findings.

Over the last decade, there has been a clear increase in ICT expenditures by households, both in value and as a proportion of total expenditure. Such a trend, however, has not affected all households in the same way. This study analyzes the socio-economic determinants of urban household expenditures on ICT goods and services in Iran in the year 2019 based on microdata from the Household Budget Surveys. To achieve this, we have applied Heckman's two-stage model, aiming to identify the determinants affecting the likelihood of spending on ICT and the amount spent. Our analysis further dissects ICT spending into its constituent components, including IT goods, IT services, communication goods, and communication services. Based on the results, per capita income has a significant and positive effect both on the probability of spending and the level of per capita ICT expenditures. Moreover, households led by male heads are more likely to engage in ICT spending, although their actual expenditures are lower. Households with larger sizes and households which have a married head are more likely to spend on ICT. The impact of education level and age of the household’s head on both the probability to use and the amount spent is positive and significant. There is a negative quadratic relationship between the age of the household’s head and both the probability of spending and the level of per capita ICT expenditures. Furthermore, consumption economies of scale exist in ICT expenditures. The likelihood of spending on all types of ICT components is positively influenced by per capita income, size of the household, education and age of the household’s head. Concerning the level of per capita expenditures on IT goods and communication goods and services, they are higher for households who have higher per capita income. There is a negative quadratic relationship between the age of the household’s head and both the probability of spending and the level of communication services expenditures. Households with highly educated heads tend to allocate higher budgets to communication goods and services. Lastly, consumption economies of scale are observed in IT goods, IT services, and communication services.

Poverty is one of the major problems of human societies that causes many social harms. Therefore, policymakers and economic development planners always aim to eliminate it. In addition, economic growth is one of the important and influential variables of macroeconomics. Therefore, examining the impact of economic growth on poverty through the lens of growth and distribution effects offers valuable insights for policymaking and poverty reduction strategies. In this study, we use the log-normal curve approach introduced by Bourguignon to estimate the growth effect on poverty utilizing data from urban households in Iran over the period 2013-2019. The results indicate that only in the one-year period of 2015-2016, the triangle of poverty, growth, and inequality has worked well and the growth has been pro-poor.Furthermore, provincial-level findings unveil discernible patterns:(a) In provinces experiencing positive growth, urban areas in Qom exhibit pro-poor growth, while those in Alborz, Golestan, and Hamedan provinces observe a trickle-down effect. Meanwhile, in other provinces, growth demonstrates an immiserizing trend.(b) In provinces with negative growth, only urban areas in Markazi province observe a reduction in poverty. However, due to the lack of growth, it cannot be concluded that this province has had pro-poor growth. In the urban areas of other provinces in this group, the situation has been unfavourable for the poor.

The elasticity of aggregate output with respect to aggregate capital and labor is computed using the cost structure of the production network of Iran's economy without using the aggregate production function. Estimations are made using Input-Output tables and according to a method developed by Baqaee and Farhi (2019, 2020). Elasticities are computed for the years 1986, 1999, 2001, 2004, 2010, 2011, and 2016. Various assumptions regarding capital costs of production sectors lead to lower and upper bounds for capital elasticity. The bounds for capital elasticity of Iran's economy were 0.15-0.35 in 1986, up to 0.22-0.55 in 1999, 2001, and 2004, even higher to 0.28-0.59 in 2010 and 2011, and down to 0.21-0.42 in 2016. Labor elasticities are one minus capital elasticities. Notably, the bounds for capital elasticity steadily increased from 1986 until the early 2010s, followed by a decline. For the non-oil sectors, the bounds for capital elasticity and the spread between those bounds are smaller than the entire economy. The bounds for the non-oil economy are 0.15-0.32 in 1986, up to 0.17-0.47 from 1999 to 2011, and 0.17-0.35 in 2016. The results show that ignoring labor compensation from unincorporated sectors of the economy increases the capital elasticity by at least 0.17 points. Our estimations can be used for robustness check and sensitivity analysis wherever capital and labor elasticities are needed, such as growth accounting.

Economic complexity is a relatively new concept developed in recent years to assess the productive characteristics of countries. It not only explains the production structure, but also helps examine differences in income and growth across countries. In this paper, we estimate the macroeconomic impact of economic complexity on growth of a sample of N-11 countries for the period 2000-2020, using the economic complexity index developed by Hidalgo and Hausman (2009). Diagnostic tests confirmed the assumption of slope coefficient heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependence of the error term. Thus, we employ the Pesaran (2006) Common Correlated Effects Mean Group estimator (CCEMG) and the Chudik and Pesaran (2015) Common Correlated Effect Pooled Mean Group (CCEPMG) methodology. The findings suggest that economic complexity is one of the key determinants of long-term economic growth. However, its impact on economic growth is not significant in the short term, suggesting that the impact of changes in production structure on economic growth is time-sensitive. The coefficients of other control variables such as human capital, investment, institutional quality, and inflation rate were statistically significant.