حبیب سهیلی احمدی

Energy subsidies encompass explicit subsidies and implicit subsidies (opportunity costs), both of which significantly influence economic agents' decision-making, as described in the theoretical literature. Iran faces several pressing issues, including escalating energy consumption, inadequate price signaling to address consumption patterns, increasing greenhouse gas emissions, and prevailing distributional challenges related to energy subsidies. Consequently, reforming energy carrier subsidies in Iran becomes an imperative task. However, numerous obstacles hinder the effective implementation of this policy, presenting substantial challenges. This study employs a comparative approach that incorporates expert opinions and utilizes the Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (FAHP) method with a holistic perspective to evaluate and rank the barriers to energy subsidy reform. The identified barriers are categorized into three groups based on specific criteria: 1) political and social barriers, 2) economic barriers, and 3) institutional and governance barriers. Subsequently, thirteen sub-criteria have been established, considering Iran's economic conditions. The research findings highlight the significance of economic barriers, accounting for 53% weight, followed by political and social barriers with 26%, and institutional and governance barriers with 21%. Notably, among the economic barriers, the high dependency of energy industries on the country's exports and the government's concerns about potential damage to foreign exchange revenues, particularly under sanctions, emerge as crucial factors. Regarding political and social barriers, the prevalent mindset of entitlement among citizens regarding energy subsidies proves noteworthy. Additionally, the lack of a cohesive and reliable database for implementing energy subsidy reform policies assumes utmost importance among institutional and governance barriers. Based on these results, it is imperative for the government to undertake measures encompassing formulation, implementation, and evaluation in all dimensions of energy subsidy reform

The promotion of electric vehicles is an effective strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, there are significant challenges that hinder the implementation of this promotion, which must be identified and evaluated to ensure effective policymaking. This research aims to identify and prioritize the barriers to promoting electric vehicles in Iran. The identification of these barriers has been carried out in two steps. In the first step, through literature review, the barriers have been identified and classified into four main categories or criteria, including 1) supply-side barriers, 2) infrastructure barriers, 3) demand-side barriers, and 4) creative destruction barriers (obstacles created by government actions, policymakers, or owners of outdated technologies that prevent the creation of a competitive environment and the replacement of technologies and new products). After the initial identification of the barriers, in an expert analysis, these barriers were reviewed by various experts from companies operating in the field of internal combustion engine vehicles and electric vehicles. Finally, after reviewing the barriers, the main criteria along with 23 sub-criteria were prioritized. Experts from relevant industries, universities, and government institutions reviewed and prioritized these barriers through the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) method. An online questionnaire was used for pairwise comparisons, completed by 24 experts. The results indicate that infrastructure barriers are the most significant, followed by creative destruction barriers, supply-side barriers, and demand-side barriers. Among the 23 sub-criteria, the unavailability of public charging infrastructure, insufficient repair and maintenance infrastructure, and significant subsidies for fossil fuels were ranked highest.

The main purpose of this research is to investigate the effects of the policies of removing subsidies for energy carriers and applying carbon tax on the variables of economic performance on the one hand and the amount of energy consumption and, consequently, the amount of CO2 gas emissions in Iran on the other hand. For this purpose, Iran ORANI-G computable general equilibrium model has been used, which is used for the simulation and analysis of shocks and economic policies. In this research, 6 scenarios, including 2 scenarios of removing subsidies for energy carriers and 4 scenarios of applying carbon tax in the short and long term, have been investigated. The results indicate that in the scenario of removing the subsidy of energy carriers in the short term, although the GDP has decreased; But on the other hand, the amount of CO2 emission has decreased significantly; Although in the long term, it has faced a more declining trend. The increase of carbon tax in contrast to the removal of subsidies for energy carriers, in addition to having a lower short-term reduction effect on the GDP, has shown the noticeable effectiveness of this scenario on the reduction of carbon emissions in the short and long-term. With the simultaneous application of two carbon tax policies and the removal of subsidies for energy carriers, the emission of carbon dioxide has shown a much greater reduction than the separate application of these policies.

During the coronavirus outbreak, Iranian government imposed social distancing and lockdown measures to reduce the number of infections. These policies caused economic activities disruption and the services are the most impacted, due to their need for human interactions. In this study, the economic growth modeling is used to investigate the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on total output, considering the effect of the sanctions. Also, the impact of coronavirus on the service sector is compared with other sectors. The study period is spring 2005 to winter 2021. The empirical results from the ARDL estimates shows the negative impact of coronavirus pandemic on gross domestic product. Furthermore, the estimation results revealed significant negative effect of COVID-19 outbreak on service sector, but the impacts on agriculture and industry sectors are not statistically meaningful.

Many governments face a trade-off between health and economy during the coronavirus pandemic. Social distancing and lockdown caused decline in gross domestic product of coronavirus affected countries. In this study, by using the input-output table of 2011, the hypothetical extraction method is used to extract 10 selected economic activities hypothetically from economic system and examine the direct and indirect effect of this extraction on Iran’s gross output. Results show that extraction of passenger transport, aviculture and clothing sectors result in the greatest reductions in gross domestic product. Furthermore, extraction of accommodation services, travel agency and tour operator activities and foodservice industry as representative of the tourism sector is able to reduce total output by almost one percent. Considering these ten selected sectors, 6.5 percent of Iran’s total economic output would be impacted by coronavirus outbreak.

The aim of this study is to model arrival process of informed and uninformed traders into Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) as well as to assess the interaction between two types of traders which is an important yet neglected topic. In this study, a sequential trade model was estimated based on trading data of 33 stocks belonging to 11 industries of TSE during the period from 2013 to 2016 using Nelder-Mead algorithm. In TSE, an unexpected rise in unbalanced trades in current single day increases the expected arrival rate of both types of traders in the next day. The arrival rate of informed traders shows lower persistence compared to that of uninformed traders in the TSE. In addition, it showed negligible sensitivity to trading intensity. The presence of informed traders doesn't necessarily lead to a decrease in the number of uninformed traders in the TSE. Similar to previous studies about stock markets in different countries, the presence of informed traders in TSE mainly depends upon their information-related advantages. Unlike most prior studies, the arrival rate of uninformed traders in TSE is not significantly affected by the arrival rate of informed traders

Stock market as a major part of financial market has an important role in mobilization of savings and finance of firms. Recognition of effective factors in expanding this market while increases the analyzing ability of researchers; it could be an appropriate guideline to policy-makers. In this study by using protecting the investors index which is calculated by the World Bank and the basis of available data from 46 developing countries during interval 2006-2010 have been investigated empirically, That which whether level of legal protection of shareholders, considering other important factors which affect the expansion of stock market has a meaningful role in expansion of stock market or not. Results of estimation of econometric model confirm this hypothesis meaning that countries making more legal protection of shareholders, have got more expanded stock market.

Scrutinizing motivational structure of entrepreneurs could sharpen understanding the formation and the implications of entrepreneurial activities in any society. Considering the wide variety of motivational structure among different countries and outstanding role of such a structure, one might wonder which factors influence it. This article employs data pertaining to 60 member countries of Global Entrepreneurship Monitor and panel data method in a try to study the macroeconomic factors that are effective on the ‘improvement-driven’ to ‘necessity-driven’ entrepreneurship ratio. The findings of the research indicate that the levels of development, economic growth, unemployment, women participation in labor, technical development and public education have significant effect on this ratio in the countries. Therefore, these macroeconomic factors should be taken into consideration in any research conducted with the aim of comparing entrepreneurial situation in various communities or places or in plans devised with the aim of entrepreneurial improvement in the national level.