فصلنامه برنامه ریزی و بودجه
پیاپی 151 (زمستان 1399)

This paper attempts to analyze the macroeconomic effects of energy price liberalization and redistribution of its proceeds to households. Energy price control and energy subsidies are of the most popular supportive policies in the economy of Iran. Nonetheless, increasing the energy price of households and firms has been exercised in recent years to counter the government budget deficit. In 2008, the government proposed a reform: energy price liberalization and redistribution of its proceeds to the household. In this paper, we analyze the macroeconomic effects of this policy according to different scenarios. In view of monetary aggregate control policy, our results show that in addition to a decline in energy intensities of households and firms, the average household’s welfare increases. Most of this increase happens in the short-run as households’ real incomes rise more in the short run. Moreover, we find that this reform results in a decline in labor supply due to the subsidy distribution, and hence a decline in both output and capital accumulation in the short run and the long run. In the scenario where only the household’s energy price rises, results are qualitatively similar with a smaller quantitative effect. Finally, it is important to note that a complete analysis of this reform should include 1) the technological progress that can be associated with a reform, 2) implementing a monetary policy that is more consistent with Iran’s institutional arrangement and 3) the political economy aspects of the reform, which are all out of the scope of this paper.

The main purpose of this study is to simulate the long-term economic effects of government size on the economy and its expenditures combination based on Iranchr('39')s budget structure over the next 20 years using the dynamic system of scenarios. In the first scenario, the increase in government size and the combination of government spending in the economy show that with the increase in government size, although the private sector investment trend is increasing in the short run, its level shifts and decreases from the previous path, and in the long run the private sector investment has declined; Furthermore, since government spends most of its revenue on running costs, production does not grow much in the long run as government size increases. In the second scenario, with the increase of the governmentchr('39')s construction share of the total budget of the country, its short-term and long-term effects are systematically estimated. The results show that as the governmentchr('39')s development share of the total budget increases, although private sector investment will increase more rapidly in the short term, in the long run the amount of private sector investment affected by other economic factors are declining, although GDP and national income are also increasing in the long run. Therefore, in order to increase production in the economy of Iran, economic development policymakers must effectively and efficiently increase public participation in the economy and reduce government size, by channeling the countrychr('39')s revenues and revenue sources in the development of infrastructure, technology, and production in the short term.

During the last decade, Iranchr('39')s labor market has been under pressure by the sanctions and the long-term Dutch disease which injects physical capital and energy subsidy into the market and crowds the labor force out of the production lines. This situation has engendered vulnerable groups of the labor force. Furthermore, the Covid-19 epidemic pushed an exogenous shock into the economy and created a natural experiment to identify the most vulnerable groups. This study investigates the heterogeneous effects of the epidemic on Iranchr('39')s labor market. We assess four main measures, including participation rate, unemployment spells, working hours, and job destruction rate. First, the results show that the participation rate has decreased substantially for women and youth. Also, those who were unemployed before the pandemic are more likely to become inactive during the pandemic. Second, unemployment spells last more after the pandemic. Third, working hours have been reduced on average, it has been reduced for those who had incomplete employment before the pandemic, but unexpectedly has increased for those who had worked completely (40 hours/week) before the pandemic. Fourth, the job destruction rate is higher among low-medium size firms, as compared to micro-firms or large ones. The robustness of these results has been tested using a multivariate model of event studies at the individual level. Overall, the employment and income distributions have become worse for the vulnerable groups including part-time workers, young workers, and women. The policymakers should consider such nonlinearities and design a targeted support plan. Future research may carry out survival analyses or structural estimations to predict the transition period towards a new post-Covid19 equilibrium.

This research attempts to determine the effect of electoral cycles (including election year, government ideology, coalition, and minority government) on the effectiveness of government in two groups of selected developing countries (group sample) and developed countries (control group) for the period 2002-2018 by using the panel data and generalized moment method. The results show that the effect of electoral cycles (including election year, government ideology, and coalition) on the effectiveness of government in both groups of selected countries is negative and significant, and the effect of the minority government on the effectiveness of government in both groups of selected countries is positive and significant. Moreover, the effect of control variables (including e-government and research and development expenditures) on the effectiveness of government in both groups of selected countries is positive and significant. However, while the effect of government size on the effectiveness of government in developing countries is negative and significant, but it is insignificant in the selected developed countries.

Due to the presence of human resource in all parts of an organization, risks related to the human resources can be extended to all organizational activities and disrupt the implementation of the organization’s plans. Accordingly, and considering the major research gap in the field of human resource risk, the aim of this study is identifying and prioritizing human resource risks in the Iranian insurance industry. After systematic study of literature and finding 59 related articles, and through interviewing 15 experts in the Iranian insurance industry, human resource risks are identified, screened, and prioritized using thematic analyses, fuzzy Delphi and network analyses. The findings demonstrate that human resource risks in Iranian insurance industry consists of recruitment, compensation, training, performance appraisal and nonfunctional risks; among which the importance of recruitment risks is higher than other risks. Thus, recruiting the right human resource will pave the way to development of Iranian insurance industry.

This research examines the relationship between corporate social responsibility and financial constraints considering the life cycle and the role of moderating government-affiliated companies in the Tehran Stock Exchange. For this purpose, the data of 141 enterprises were collected for the period 2009-2018 and the life cycle of companies was divided into three categories of growing, mature, and declining companies. Analysis and testing of hypotheses were done by Eviews statistical software. The results of the research show that there is a negative and significant relationship between corporate social responsibility and financial constraints (with a 95% confidence level in the growth stage; with a 90% confidence level in the maturity and decline stages). The results also show that government-affiliated companies had no significant effect on corporate social responsibility and financial constraints. The present study also suggests some research ideas and executive recommendations.