سکینه اوجی مهر

In this study, considering the characteristics of complex networks such as dynamics and comprehensiveness in analyzing the behaviors of countries, the global network of foreign investment inflows consisting of 248 countries and trade territories in the years 2009 to 2022 was constructed, and network indicators including degree, closeness centrality, betweenness centrality, PageRank, hub, and authority were calculated. Then, the functional position of the top-performing countries based on the intensity and level of the obtained network indicators was analyzed and compared annually. The results obtained during the study period showed improvement in the degree, betweenness, and PageRank indices, which respectively indicate the number and diversity of communications, the share of information control among countries, and countries' efforts to use the influence of neighbors to reach polar and influential countries. The effect of increasing closeness centrality, which indicates the level of independence, on the main countries in the effective network has improved. Therefore, it is recommended that if countries seek to increase foreign direct investment inflows, they should plan in such a way that their network indicators, resulting from increased interactions and communications, are improved.

Unconventional monetary policies entered the field of economic discussions after the global financial crisis of 2008 and with the ineffectiveness of conventional monetary policies and have been considered with the aim of combating the reduction of money supply and economic recession. One of the important tools used to implement unconventional monetary policies is credit esing, which obviously does not have a quantitative value, and on the other hand, its prediction and impact on macroeconomic variables is of particular importance. In this research, the effect of the shocks resulting from the implementation of the credit easing policy on Iran's macroeconomic variables is investigated using the QUAL VAR method. In this way, using standard, simulated and quantified methods, the effect of credit easing policy shocks on macroeconomic variables during the years 2001 to 2022 is investigated using various tests. The results show that the impact of the mentioned policy shocks in the first months after the shock has caused a 0.04 percent decrease in the real GDP growth rate, a 0.01 percent increase in the inflation rate, and a 0.03 percent decrease in the employment rate and then in the following months, it will increase real GDP growth rate and employment rate. The mentioned shocks caused a 0.03 percent increase in the monetary base. Therefore, these applied shocks increase growth expectations. In general, the results show the fact that the policy of credit easing has led to an expansion in the assets side of the Central Bank's balance sheet, and by applying the necessary controls, it can be a suitable tool for stabilizing and growing macroeconomic variables in the months after its implementation and dealing with recessionary conditions.

The central bank is the most important economic institution of any country, and for this reason, the efficiency of this institution is of particular importance. Study on the efficiency of the Central Bank of Iran is an inevitable necessity due to the instability of prices and significant non-performing loans in the banking system. In this study, first, efficiency of the Central Bank of Iran along with 15 different countries was calculated by Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method. The input variables for calculating the efficiency of the central bank contain fixed assets and personnel and administrative cost. The output variables include monetary policy and banking supervision, which banking supervision includes financial and banking freedom and the ratio of non-performing loans. Then factors affecting the efficiency of the Central Bank of Iran between the years 2012 to 2018 were analyzed by using the system dynamics modeling method. In the first step, the causal loop diagrams (CLD) and the stock-flow diagram (SFD) of factors affecting efficiency in Central Bank of Iran were drawn were drawn. Then model validation tests were performed. Finally, different scenarios were investigated. The results of this study showed that the Central Bank of Iran in 2012-2018 is one of the most inefficient central banks among the 16 studied countries and is a long way from the three countries on the efficiency frontier like South Korea, Canada, and Australia. Central bank Independence and the significant amount of non-performing loans of the banking system are the main reasons for the inefficiency of the central bank of Iran. By applying different scenarios to improve the efficiency of the Central Bank, it was concluded that the most important effective factors to improve the efficiency of the Central Bank of Iran are monitoring the banking system along with preventing the increase of government debt with the independence of the Central Bank.

Banking facilities distortions lead to suboptimal allocation of financial resources and impact various sectors of the economy. In this paper, a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model, specifically a New Keynesian model, is designed for the Iranian economy, considering two scenarios: the presence and absence of banking facilities distortions. The model is calibrated using Monte Carlo simulation methods with the DYNARE software. The parameter values are calibrated to accurately reflect the main characteristics of the Iranian economy during the period of 1991-2021. The main objective is to examine the effects of major economic shocks on the fluctuations of macroeconomic variables under these two scenarios. The studied shocks include monetary shock, investment shock, wage mark-up shock, and government expenditure shock, which are considered as the sources of economic fluctuations in Iran. The simulation results of the effects of the monetary policy shock indicate that, assuming the absence of banking facilities distortions in the first scenario, the effectiveness of this shock increases, indicating an increased effectiveness of monetary policy in mitigating economic fluctuations. The results also show that, assuming the absence of banking facilities distortions, the economy tends to return to equilibrium faster after experiencing negative investment shocks or wage mark-up shocks, implying a reduction in the impact of these shocks. The simulation results of the effects of government expenditure shocks also demonstrate that, assuming the absence of banking facilities distortions, the effectiveness of this shock increases

One of the essential goals countries are pursuing is achieving a high economic growth rate. There are several factors involved in achieving this goal. Among these, innovation in financial markets, especially the stock market, plays an important role. Since the impact of financial innovation on economic growth in countries varies according to the level of governance, so in this study, the role of good governance has been considered. In this study, the ratio of exchange-traded fund (ETF) value to GDP is selected as a proxy for financial innovation, and the good governance variable is selected as the threshold variable. In order to investigate the impact of financial innovation in the stock market on economic growth, panel data from 38 selected developing and developed countries from 2002 to 2017 and a threshold dynamic panel model have been used. The results indicate that the impact of financial innovation on economic growth is different at low and high levels of governance. In other words, the good governance index plays a role in the impact of financial innovation on economic growth. When the level of good governance index is higher than the threshold level, the impact of financial innovation on economic growth is more significant.

Extended abstract
1- The Heritage Foundation has developed the Economic Freedom Index since 1995. Over the past 25 years, the global average score of this index has grown by 2.3, and many countries worldwide have joined the group of free countries on average. Many countries abundance of natural resources has become a curse due to their weak institutional structure. The high revenues from the sale of resources have led to rent-seeking, corrupt and repressive governments. Evidence shows that economic freedom in these countries is not in a good situation. In this regard, we test the following two hypotheses: First, Corruption undermines economic freedom. Second, in addition to directly impacting economic freedom. Corruption can also affect the impact of natural resource income on economic freedom so that the impact of natural income on economic freedom is different at any level of corruption. for this purpose, using the data of forty-nine selected countries with abundant resources during the period 2002-2017, the effect of corruption on the impact of natural income on the economic freedom of these countries has been studied.
2- THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Countries with natural resources create corruption and rent-seeking. One of the measures taken by the rentier government to solve problems in the manufacturing sector and protect investors is to keep bank interest rates low. Since this interest rate is usually lower than the market equilibrium rate, it creates an excess demand for loans, and the government is forced to either implement the credit quota or subsidize the production sector. The implementation of any of these policies is defined in the context of financial repression. Another feature of resource-rich countries is subsidies and price suppression. Suppression of prices is one of the factors reducing economic freedom through the component of monetary freedom. Monetary freedom is a measure of price stability combined with price control assessments. Both inflation and price control disrupt the market; price stability without economic interference (at the micro-level) is ideal for the free market. From the entrepreneur to the consumer, all economic factors need a stable and reliable currency to use as a means of exchange, a unit of counting and storing value. Without monetary freedom, it will not be easy to create long-term value for capital. Inflationary policies destroy the wealth of individuals in society and act as an invisible tax. In addition, distorting prices leads to inadequate resource allocation and increases business costs. Although no single monetary policy can be recommended for all countries, most monetary theories support low inflation and central bank independence. It is also accepted that price control disrupts market efficiency and leads to surplus or shortage. Therefore, natural income can hurt economic freedom.
3-             The data used in the present study are the economic freedom index, natural resources revenue as a percentage of GDP, the index of corruption perception, and the index of political stability. Regarding the corruption perceptions index, it should be added that this index shows corruption in the public sector of one country compared to other countries and is ranked between 0 and 100. the higher the rank of a country, the less corruption there is in that country. Samti et al. (2006), Graeff and Mehlkop (2003), Jichi and Cabro (2019), and Alsarhan (2019) have also shown that economic freedom affects Corruption. Therefore, due to the possibility of endogenous problems in the model, the framework of the dynamic panel model is used. However, in some cases, the regression function may not be the same for the whole observation, and the regression can be divided into different parts based on a specific threshold value. In this regard, Hansen (1999) has proposed a threshold non-dynamic panel model. However, in this model, the endogenous bias between the dependent and independent variables is not considered. In order to consider endogeny, Caner and Hansen (2004) developed Hansen (1999) model by adding endogenous variables and exogenous threshold variables. Nevertheless, the model proposed by these researchers also cannot be used for dynamic panels. Finally, a model that can be used in a dynamic panel model is introduced by Kremer et al. (2013).
4- RESULTS &             The results of the study show that corruption hurts economic freedom. This result is consistent with the results of studies by Emerson (2006), Apergis et al. (2012), Yamarik and Redmon (2017) and Jichi, and Cabro (2019). In addition, the second hypothesis of the research is also confirmed; The results show that if the corruption perception index is less than 32, the income from the sale of natural resources hurts economic freedom. However, for countries with a corruption perception index above the threshold (countries with a lower level of Corruption), natural income cannot significantly affect economic freedom. countries with abundant resources have a very favorable ground for the formation of corruption and rent-seeking activities.
5- CONCLUSIONS & SUGGESTIONS
The present study results suggest that if a resource-rich country has Corruption above the threshold, natural income will be spent on repressive economic policies and reduce economic freedom. However, if the level of Corruption is controlled to some extent, the negative and positive effects of the abundance of resources on economic freedom will neutralize each other. In general, the effect of natural income on economic freedom will be insignificant. Overall, the results indicate that the improvement of the weak economic freedom of selected countries with abundant resources depends on the improvement of Corruption in these countries. However, many of these countries have a long way to reach the Corruption Perceptions Index threshold level. Thus, the policy recommendation for these countries is to strengthen the regulatory components, both on the activities of the government and those who have a key role in the resource management system, to provide the basis for accountability of these actors and thus, the formation of corruption restricted.

Analysis of financial markets time series is an aspect of finance which is important to both investors as well as regulators. In particular, the validity of the efficient market hypothesis plays a significant part in such considerations. In this regard, the (weak) efficient market hypothesis is usually investigated within the random walk theory with tools such as rescaled rang analysis. However, it is by now well-known that markets are complex system, whose technical analysis requires tools for complex systems theory. We therefore use the Multi-Fractal Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (MFDFA) in order to addresses the degree of market efficiency in various sector of industries in the Tehran Stock Exchange. We choose the largest sectors and analyze their daily price indices for the period of March 2008 to December 2020. For each of the sectors we calculate the generalized Hurst exponent as well as singularity exponent and singularity spectrum. We next use various measures of market inefficiency based on Multi-Fractal analysis (width of singularity spectrum) in order to rank these sectors in term of their inefficiency index. We find that while oil products and metallic mineral products sectors rank high on inefficiency, diversified industrials and base metals, rank relatively lower. We also note that a measure of standard Hurst exponent indicates that all considered sectors are relatively inefficient when compared to other Islamic Stock Exchange indices.

In recent years, the causes of double-digit inflation in the economy of Iran have been the biggest challenge for Iranian researchers. However, time inconsistency has been paid less attention while according to Kydland and Prescott (1977), time inconsistency of monetary policy can be the most important cause of inflation bias.
A policy is time inconsistent or dynamic inconsistent when it is considered as the best policy for particular time in the future, but it does not remain so, when that particular time actually arrives. There are two possible mechanisms that have been considered for such a time inconsistency. (i) Strotz(1955-1956) explain that time inconsistency is because of changing preferences, (ii) Kydland and Prescott(1977) consider another explanation that is based on agent’s rational expectation. The main idea is, when people expect low inflation, central bank thinks of high inflation. If people understand it, they predict higher inflation. In this situation, predicted inflation is optimal inflation. In other word, while inflation policy is optimal at first, high inflation policy will be optimal in the end. We use the second mechanism in this paper. Barro and Gordon (1983) have explained time inconsistency of monetary policy as follow: in a discretionary regime, central banker can print more money and make more inflation than people’s expectation. Benefits of this surprising inflation might provide more economic activities or reduce government’s debt. However, if people, due to their rational expectation, understand it and adjust their expectations with it, then policy maker will not reach his target at all. Besides that, due to increased money supply, the level of prices will grow.
So the question that arises here is how much of the inflation is due to discretionary behaviors in applying monetary and fiscal policies? In other words, what is the inflationary bias caused by the Time Inconsistency of monetary and financial policies?
In the present study, the framework of Barro-Gordon has been applied to calculate the inflation bias of time inconsistency of monetary and fiscal policies. In fact, we have extended Walsh (2010)’smodel by adding fiscal variable. These models consist of two main sections: loss function and the supply curve. According to the structure of the economy of the developing countries, the fiscal and monetary policies are dependent and are determined by a third person (the president). Thus, a general loss function which consists of fiscal and monetary variables is used. In fact, the lack of independence of the central bank is considered in this model.
What distinguishes this study from other studies, include: Calculating the inflation bias using a model that considers the time inconsistency of monetary and fiscal policies simultaneously.
Unlike Surico (2008), we used symmetric loss function.
Calculating inflation bias in Each Economic Development plan of Iran
The model solution will be done by two approaches of discretion and commitment. After applying the optimization, inflation bias will be the difference of results of these two approaches. Moreover, the inflationary bias of the model is calculated based on Iran’s economy data over the period of 1991-2016. This bias is then calculated for each of the country's five-year economic development plan.
The results show high inflation bias in Iran (9.8%). Furthermore, based on the results, the first and the third economic development plans have the lowest and the highest inflation bias, respectively. Besides that, it can be seen, predicted inflation in third and second part of fifth economic development plans, have significant difference with performance inflation. In other words, the present model has failed to provide an adequate estimate of the inflation of these two periods. It seems that the reason is considering high target inflation in two plans.

Discretionary policies, lead to the expectations traps and multiple equilibria in economy, which could be the most important causes of persistent inflation. This study by using a micro foundation general equilibrium investigates expectations traps of discretionary monetary policy in dominant fiscal policy condition. Our calibrated model shows that the interest rate in these conditions is about 2.5 times greater than the rate of interest achieved by the assumption of independent monetary policy. This result shows the amount of effect of taking advantage of discretionary monetary policy, with the aim of achieving government budget, on increasing the equilibrium interest rate. This increase consequently raises the equilibrium inflation rate and results in persistent inflation traps in the economy. The model was also calibrated using data from Iran. The results show that equilibrium of Iran's economy will be achieved at the interest rate of 12%. In other words, in the interest rate of less than 12%, the benefit of inflation is more than the cost of inflation distortion.

Hybrid sticky price model is one of the main models، used to analyze the Persistencyand inertia in inflation. In recent years، Mankiw and Reis (2002)، s sticky information model، has also been considered by many economic analysts. So، in present paper، we try to investigate and compare these models by using a Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) framework، based on new Keynesian structure. For this purpose، the data 1370:1-1391:4 Iran''s economy has been used. The results of the estimated coefficient of inflation inertia indicate، inflation inertia in the model of hybrid price stickiness is more than information stickiness model. Inflation Persistency analysis is based on comparing the autocorrelation function of the original data and simulated data، show that hybrid price stickiness is better thaninformation stickiness model shows inflation persistence. It seems to be a hybrid price stickiness model more consistent with the economy of Iran and economic policy makers can be more confident of the results of this model to use them.

Given the importance of understanding inflation behavior for modeling، forecasting and policymaking، the main question is whether stationary tests for inflation rate in Iran are accurate and correct? An answer to this question depends on studying the inflation dynamics. Overlooking this fact might result in using wrong stationary tests and hence incorrect forecast about inflation movement. The purpose of this paper is to study inflation dynamics in Iran for the period 1991:2-2011:4. Most stationary tests in Iran are based on linear behavior of inflation rate and show that this variable is stationary. This means that the cost of fighting inflation is not high. This paper questions these results and examines the possibility of nonlinear behavior of inflation rate in Iran. The results suggest that inflation follows a nonlinear path and its movement is very well explained by an exponential smooth transition autoregressive (ESTAR) model. Given the nonlinearity of inflation rate in Iran، we apply the nonlinear unit root tests suggested by Kapetanios، Shin and Snell (KSS) to inflation rate. In contrast to most studies in Iran، we show that the inflation rate in Iran is a nonlinear non-stationary variable. This finding casts doubt on previous researches that considered inflation rate to be a stationary variable. Finally، it seems that shocks might have permanent effects on inflation rate and it would be very costly for monetary authorities to implement anti-inflationary policies in Iran.

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the behavior of the foreign exchange market pressure index (EMP) in the context of the Iranian economy؛ To do so, in first, EMP index has been calculated by employing a Model- Independent approach؛The result of this step shows that EMP index has a nonlinear nature and foreign exchange market is faced a non smooth condition by forces of appreciation and depreciation pressure؛ Such a result makes clear that the exchange market pressure should be analysed in a non-linear model؛ On the basis of this result, then we use the smooth transition autoregressive model (STAR) to investigate the foreign exchange market pressure index behavior؛ The final results indicate that during the depreciation pressure regime, changes in money and inflation have a positive and significant effect on the EMP and during the appreciation pressure regime, inflation has a negative and significant coefficient؛

If with expansionary (contractionary) fiscal policy، private consumption increases (decreases)، fiscal policy has Keynesian nature; else، it has non- Keynesian nature. If in certain period، sometimes fiscal policy has Keynesian effects and sometimes it has non- Keynesian effects، it will have non-linear effects. Since، there is not a paper about non- linear fiscal policy in IRAN، the purpose of this paper، is to test the non-linear effects of fiscal policy on private consumption in IRAN، during 1993:2-2010:4. So we use a Markov-switching model with FTP and TVTP approach. The results of the estimation of the Markov switching model with FTP present the existence of significant non-linarites in the effects of fiscal policy in IRAN. Also the Keynesian regime is an absorbing regime such that the probability of remaining in the non- Keynesian regime is just، 1%. Furthermore، Estimation results for the TVTP model show that we cannot find any strong evidence about the sources of these non-linarites.

In this paper, we analyze the pro-cyclical behavior of fiscal policy in I. R.IRAN during1974-2007. For this aim, we estimate an econometric model with ARDL co-integration technique. The results showed that first; Woo (2009) hypothesis is accepted. In other words, in short- and long-run increases in social polarizations (income and education inequalities), increases fiscal policy pro-cyclicality. Second; Diallo (2009) hypothesis is accepted. In other words, institutional qualities in short- and long-run have the positive and significant effects on fiscal policy pro-cyclicality. Third; Oil price volatility has the positive and significant effects on fiscal policy pro-cyclicality.

The urban development sustainability is a subject of interest for regional policy makers and a planner, so introducing certain approached for measuring it, is very important. In this paper, we compares the several approaches have been proposed to test sustainability, and propose the suitable approach for measuring urban development sustainability. Then, we measure urban development sustainability index for 6 metropolitans of IRAN. The results of comparing several approaches show that SAFE model is the best. The SAFE model compared to the aforementioned approaches appears to be quite holistic in that it uses a balanced representation of environmental, social, economical and political aspects. The results of measuring urban development sustainability indicate that the most sustainable metropolitan of IRAN in 1386, is Esfahan.

The purpose of this paper is to study the role of fiscal policy in stabilization in I. R. IRAN during 1974-2007. Our analysis is articulated in two steps. The first step is the analysis of Keynesian or non-Keynesian nature of fiscal policy. The second step is the characterization of cyclical behavior of fiscal policy. The results show that, fiscal policy has Keynesian nature, but behaves pro-cyclically. Taken together these two finding imply that fiscal policy in I. R. IRAN is a cause of volatility and not a tool for stabilization.

An autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL), approach to cointegration analysis is used to study the short- and long-run determinants of housing investment in Iran over the period of 1375:3-1385:4. The explanatory variables include house price index, construction cost, household income, money supply, bank’s deposit interest rate, exchange rate, stock price index and gold coin price. The short and long run results indicate that house price index, household income, exchange rate and money supply have positive and construction cost and stock price index have negative effects on housing investment. However, the housing investment is not affected by gold coin price and bank’s deposit interest rate. This research also indicates that the eslasticities of housing investment with respect to house price index, construction cost, money supply and household income are greater than one. However, it was found to be inelastic with respect to other variables.