فصلنامه برنامه ریزی و بودجه
پیاپی 83 (دی و بهمن 1382)

Extended distribution of digicash has commercial, socio-economic as well as political effects. From the economic viewpoint, the most crucial effect of digicash use extension takes place on money supply, monetary policies and central bank. Because digicash is capable of being replaced by bank notes and the coins, it is possible that digicash gradually takes the place of the central bank money and therefore endangers monopolized state of the central bank in the areas such as monetary policy-making, banking supervision, payments system supervision, financial system stability and particularly its independence. This paper reviews the probable effects of digicash distribution on exchanges efficiency, financial intermediates, foreign exchange market, financial markets, money demand and especially monetary policy-marking. The consequences of digicash use extension effects on Iran's economy reveals that digicash distribution has very little impacts on volume of money, the central bank,s supervision autribution of digicash has very important role in the ways the digicash use extension affects the economy. In other words, if the central bank limits the distribution of digicash through using its instruments or if the central bank distributes the digicash itself, obviously, lots of the effects will not happen or they will be very limited.

One of the most important economic factors is potential output. In macroeconomic models and structural studies، the estimation of potential output is necessary for projections and analyzing policy performances. There exist several methods for estimating potential output. Meanwhile، its estimation is a difficult and complicated matter. Empirical studies and researches show that using various techniques and methods in estimating potential output leads to different estimations. In the present study، the different methods of estimating potential output are reviewed. Then potential output of Iran within 1961-1998 is estimated by four time trend، Hodrick-Prescott filtering، state space and VAR. The comparison of Iran potential output estimation results shows that although estimation results are different، they are very similar to each other. Among these four estimation methods، VAR and state space techniques show better results respectively.

Because of the need for decentralization in the Iran's centralized planning system, planners and experts have always been thinking about planning decentralization, provincial development and defining legal and institutional frameworks for it. It is to be noted that although outstanding efforts have been made during the recent years especially within Iran's third development plan years, provincial planning and development and its role in the national planning system are considered a big challenge. A look at the process of decentralization formation and evolution particularly in the areas of regional planning and development shows the turning points made during Iran's development plans legal documentation either after the Islamic Revolution or before it. It should be mentioned that form this standpoint, the third development plan (2000-2004) is viewed an outstanding turning point. Due to the emphasis on the system reform and institutionalization, provincial revenue- expenditure system was first devised in the development plan and the legal as well as institutionalized status of provincial planning and development was defined in its framework. Provincial revenue-expenditure system is a closed and consistent set that is composed of four essential pillars i.e. decision-making council, expert work groups, financial resources, and domain of activities. This system aims at internalizing provincial development process as much possible and increasing the participation motivation and accountability of provincial development in this process. With this aim, which is limited only to "acquisition of assets outlays" in the third development, provincial development plans in each province is defined as a function of the provincial revenue. Moreover, in this system a part of developed province's provincial revenues is paid to the national treasury and allocated to less developed provinces. It is another characteristic of this system and it is followed with the aim of balancing the development of various regions of the country have made difficulties for the full establishment of the provincial revenue-expenditure system within the third development. Plan. This paper starts with a brief overview on regional development decentralization trend in Iran. Then, it defines the characterstics and logic of the provincial revenue-expenditure system. It evaluates the performance of this system in the years of the third development plan and clarifies its opportunities and threats as well. Eventually, the paper goes to the challenges of an ideal system and its future prospects.