سید حسین سجادی فر

In recent years, global warming has intensified, and climate change issues have gained great importance. The consequences of this warming trend, along with the growth in population, have caused various proposals to be put forward to develop renewable energy sources to achieve sustainable development. Introduction of pumped storage hydropower (PSH) is a sign of this trend. These plants can store excess energy when demand is low and release it when demand is at its peak. In recent years, the development of these power plants has been followed seriously, and it is expected that investment in such plants will be increasingly high in the future. Due to the importance of meeting climate goals and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the development of these power plants that produce electricity with minimal carbon emissions is crucial.

This article examines the criteria affecting water poverty, including driving forces, pressure, state and impact, and to identifies the factors affecting these criteria using the PLS-SEM method in 2011, 2015 and 2019. The findings from estimation of the model show that water poverty in the provinces of the country is affected by driving forces such as the unemployment rate, and the death rate of children under one years old. The state of water poverty is also affected by the pressure structure with variables such as the average annual height of rainfall, the consumption of chemical fertilizers per hectare of cultivated area. In addition, the structure of the state, which indicates environmental changes, has a negative and significant effect on the impacts of water poverty. Regarding the factors influencing water poverty in the years under review, it can be said that the most influencing factor on structures is the percentage of people covered by the social security organization with a coefficient of 0.796, the percentage of irrigated lands out of the total cultivated lands. with a coefficient of 0.893, total drinking water consumption with a coefficient of 0.888 and desert phenomena with a coefficient of 1.

The purpose of the present study is to investigate the mechanism of the effect of economic factors on the volume of bank deposits in the banking system of Iran. For this purpose, firstly, the test of endogeneity versus exogenity of money was tested by examining the two views of conformists and structuralists, and then the effect of economic factors on the volume of bank deposits in the banking system of Iran with the threshold approach (STAR) and based on the quarterly data of 1379- 1397 was estimated. The results of the system generalized torques model show the confirmation of the conformist and structuralist views for Iran's economy, but the degree of money endogeneity in Iran is not complete, so the role of the central bank is important both through the monetary base and the increasing coefficient on the money supply. Also, the estimation of the results of the model (STAR) shows; The variables of exchange rate fluctuations and inflation rate, global financial crises have a negative effect and the variables of oil price, liquidity, bank deposit interest rate and bank facilities have a positive effect on the total volume of bank deposits. According to the results; One of the challenges that exists in the banking network of Iran is the government management of banks, therefore, monetary policies are a source of financing and a source of rent, so it is suggested to increase the liquidity of banks and direct it to the real sector of the economy, laws to reduce interference Government in private and public banks, to improve the competitive and banking atmosphere of the country.

Achieving economic growth and price stability through monetary, fiscal and exchange rate policies requires coordination. The purpose of this paper was to investigate the relationship between the volatility of these policies in Iran over1357-1396 periods. So that VAR approaches was used. Using the EGARCH method, the volatility of tax revenue, government expenditure, liquidity, interest rate and real exchange rate were estimated. The results of the impulse response test showed that in the long run, monetary policy volatility (liquidity) has a direct impact on financial policy volatility. Also, the volatility of fiscal policy has a negative effect on the volatility of monetary policy (liquidity), but it has not affected the volatility of interest rates. According to the results, financial policy volatility (government expenditures) leading to an increase in real exchange rate volatility and monetary policy volatility (liquidity) also has a negative impact on real exchange rate volatility. Thus, it can be seen that the fiscal policies resulting from government spending and the monetary policies resulting from the volume of liquidity affect each other. They also have significant long-term effects on real exchange rate volatility.

The coordination of monetary and fiscal policies, given the financial crises that have occurred in the last decade, has increased more than ever and has led countries considers coordinating economic policies to deal with the adverse effects of these crises. The implementation of any economic policy is accompanied by instabilities that can affect each other. Accordingly, the present article examines the interaction effects of monetary and fiscal policy instabilities in the Iranian economy. For this purpose, using the Markov-Switching Vector Auto Regression Model (MSVAR) during the period 1978-2017, the interaction effects of monetary and fiscal policies were investigated. The instability of the variables of tax revenues, government expenditures, interest rates and broad money was estimated using the Hadrick-Prescott filter. The results showed that government size instability in regimes of zero and one has a negative effect on interest rate instability. Interest rate volatility in regimes one and two has a significant effect on government-size instability. Also, the size instability of the government did not have a significant effect on the instability of the volume of broad money, but the instability of the broad money in the regime two had direct effects on the instability of the size of the government. The instability of tax revenues in the regime two had direct and significant effects on the instability of interest rates, while the instability of interest rates did not have a significant effect on the instability of tax revenues. Also, the instability of tax revenues in regimes of zero and one had a direct and significant effect on the instability of broad money and the instability of the broad money in the regimes two had direct and significant effects on the instability of tax revenues. Accordingly, in the Iranian economy, the instability of monetary and fiscal policies affects each other under regime conditions.

Given the environmental conditions governing it, its stakeholders' expectations and its organizational mission and in the context of supplying and distribution of water and safe disposal of wastewater, the water and wastewater sector needs to grow and develop in parallel to the changes in environmental conditions. For this reason identifying the development condition of the water and wastewater sector is a necessity in the context of targeting plans and strategies from the aspect of sectorial management and senior management. This research was undertaken to identify the level of development of the water and wastewater companies (35 companies) from the aspect of the different indicators specific to the water and wastewater industry in the context of clarifying the economic plans and to enhance and improve operational activities. In the course of the study, after identifying 18 indicators, the exploratory factor analysis was undertaken and the number of indicators was reduced to 5 significant factors. Then the combined indicator was calculated according to the weight of factors and the entire sector was classified. In continuation and by applying the hierarchal clustering method the development levels of water and wastewater companies were categorized on the basis of 5 factors in three homogenized groups of development. The study's results indicate an unbalanced and non-homogenous level of development in the sector, with some companies failing to achieve the desirable level of development and needing greater attention and planning to improve the developmental conditions.

Carbon dioxide emissions are known to be one of the major contributors to environmental pollution and climate change, so many researchers have investigated this issue in their studies. In this empirical study, using theoretical discussions and information from OPEC members in the Gulf States, it is attempted to accurately estimate the marginal abatement cost of carbon dioxide emissions and improve the effectiveness of policies by identifying the effective factors. By correctly recognizing the regional differences in terms of supply and demand for environmental services, it can be concluded that to achieve the long-term goals of reducing global emissions, achieving a win-win state between environmental considerations and economic benefits and more effective presence of these countries in world markets, the more efficient the use of such regional plans will be. The results show that Iran has the highest shadow price of $ 3.025 million per ton of carbon dioxide and Kuwait has the lowest shadow price of $ 0.011 million per ton of carbon dioxide Also, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE have the same shadow price of $ 1.14 million per ton of carbon dioxide.

Major investments and high operational expenditure are the special characteristics of the water and wastewater industry in the context of organizational mission. Planning the production and improving the efficiency of production factors by quantitative models are among the conventional methods in the management of investments, costs and financial resources. This research aimed to identify the share and elasticity of the urban water production factors and partial and total productivity in the context of production planning. The data used are panel data according to size of production and production factors (labor, capital stock and energy). The data on 34 urban waters and wastewater companies in the period of 2006-2016 (374 samples) were used and the fixed effect econometric method was applied to estimate the Cobb – Douglas production function. The results indicated that in the water and wastewater industry the elasticity of the labor, the capital and the energy was 0.32, 0.42, and 0.21, respectively. The research findings showed that the productivity of capital and energy as well as the total factor productivity declined in the years 2015 and 2016 while the efficiency of labor remained constant. The findings can be used by the top management of the industry as a strong tool for strategic planning of production of a high level of reliability.

As the result of increasing importance of global CO2 emissions and balance between economic development and these gases emission, cooperation between all countries is necessary. The equity in allocation of emission allowances have a significant impact on efficiency of this system. Based on Zero sum gains data envelopment analysis (ZSG-DEA) allocation model and given the premise of fixed CO2 emissions, this paper attempts to determine optimal emissions allocation and creating conditions for cooperation among selected OPEC members. The results show that after initial emission rights were allocated in accordance with the ZSG-DEA model, optimal distribution in these selected countries differs from their current state. Also, Consider to the energy consumption indices, capital formation, population, gross domestic production and CO2 emissions, the optimal emissions in our country is higher than the current level. While Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE should reduce their CO2 emissions.

Today in the light of the competitive markets, diversity of products, political and economic evolutions, climate changes, depletion and pollution of a number of natural resources etc., the science of economy has extended its limits beyond the linear economy (production – distribution – consumption) and is moving towards a circular economy (production – consumption – recycle). In addition to the main objective, the reduction and recycling, or reusing of the waste from production processes, is the main ideal of circular economy. The topic of circular economy in the water and wastewater industry can be considered from the aspect of its specific features (simultaneous consumption of water and the generation of wastewater), negative impacts of wastewater on the environment, water scarcity caused by growing population, the intense competition among water consumers (agriculture, industry, and domestic), reduction of the per-capita water resources, consecutive droughts, and the reuse of wastewater in the course of sustainable development. While explaining the fundamentals of a circular economy, sustainable development, and reuse of wastewater, this paper tries to analyze and review the interaction of these components and the requirements and opportunities of the circular economy in the reuse of wastewater in the course of sustainable development. Also, in this study, using the economic value of water in different economic sectors of the country and the wastewater allocated to these sectors, the share of wastewater in creating the economic value added to the country in 1394 is calculated. The results show that the circular economy of wastewater will create IRR 2251 billion (0.02% of the total national value added) and that the correct management and planning for efficient reuse of wastewater can play an important role in the national economic value, water resources management, and sustainable development.

This paper introduces a new approach to evaluating selected developing countries. In this study, we define two categories of outputs (desirable and undesirable) to measure the performance of the selected countries. Indeed, it is necessary to explore how to combine two separated efficiency measures in a unified structure. The conventional data envelopment analysis (DEA) may fail to identify decision-making units (DMUs) and as a result efficiency scores may not be meaningful, especially when the number of DMUs is insufficient. In this paper, a new approach is presented based on DEA and game theory to evaluate large-scale DMUs. For this purpose, the bargaining games as a cooperative game model are combined with the conventional DEA models. Moreover, DMUs do be are divided by different categories of measures in the competitive environment. The results show that China and Poland have conditions of maximum energy efficiency with using the integrated assessment model. Other countries have been qualified by a bargaining game, but they have not been a favorable outcome like as China and Poland.

Drinking water pricing is a major challenge facing the water and wastewater industry in Iran where decisions of water pricing are essentially based on social, legal, administrative, and financial criteria with only a slight heed, if any, paid to economic considerations. Generally speaking, the price of water in Iran reflects a percentage fraction of the costs of water production and distribution while an economterically efficient model of water pricing is absent. This failure to account for economic considerations in water pricing has turned water into a commodity supplied either at a very low price or free of charge in cases. The current situation of water scarcity which is complicated by a multitude of environmental problems can only be ascribed to the present water pricing policies. It is, therefore, essential for the water sector to employ economic tools, adopt relevant approaches, and execute optimized strategic policies in an attempt to reduce the negative impacts of the imminent water crisis. Based on the above considerations, the present study was designed to investigate and review optimal water pricing policies at Arak Water and Wastewater Authority which functions as a business offering both domestic and non-domestic water services. The cost function considered is a translog one and the seemingly unrelated regressions are used for estimation. Results show that the domestic water price levied from customers covers only 33% of the total production and delivery costs such that Arak Water & Wastewater Authority practices the economy of scale in producing both domestic and non-domestic water. Considering the fact that pricing based on the marginal cost under the conditions of economy of scale leads to financial losses for Arak W&W Authority, it seems appropriate to calculate the second best price as suggested by Frank Ramsey. Thus, the marginal cost was combined with the price elasticity for the domestic water demand in the different seasons of the year to obtain the second best prices proposed for the different seasons. Results indicate that water prices during the high demand months of spring and summer should be higher than the marginal cost while it must be below this level during the low demand months of fall and winter.

Among the different environmental pollutions, water pollution is of especial importance due to the rather unchanging supply of this vital resource on a global scale and because of the dire consequences of its pollution for human health. The relationship between water production and its pollution can thus established and used as a measure of environmental degradation. This relationship can then be captured and analyzed in terms of environmental Kuznets hypotheses. It may be claimed that the early stages of economic growth is associated with lower per capita income and water pollution but the trend is reversed with increasing per capita income and improved economic growth. The present study was conducted using the panel data technique and the Kuznets environmental hypotheses were examined for the two groups of developed and developing countries under the two scenarios of using either per capita GDP or the share of industry to the added value in GDP as an indicator of economic growth. Results indicate that under both scenarios, Kuznets hypotheses are confirmed when studying the situation in developing countries but refuted in the case of developed countries.

Assess the ecological effects of economic activity on the water, earth and man in the Iranian economy approach using input - output tableWater is a vital resource for each biological and economic phenomenon. Water is considered as a production input. Production is not possible without water in all economic sectors. Also, the environment including air, soil, fauna and plants utilize water in their bioprocess, therefore the quantity of water demand is not limited only to final and intermediate demand in economic sectors. In this paper effect of economic activities and ecological water footprint, land and human has been investigated using an input- output table with method RAS in 2012. Data of this study derived from national accounts and water statistical yearbook data. First, production multiplier coefficient of sectors links and then water, land, and human multiplier coefficient, are calculated. In fact, the calculated multiplier coefficient expresses the relationship between final demand and water, land, and human in physical quantity terms in Iran’s economy. Results show that one unit of demand or investment in agricultural sector requires 65722 m3 of water. Also, this quantity in industry, mining, building and service sectors are 13922, 1227, 3260 and 1005 m3 respectively. Also, the results of land multiplier coefficient show that one unit demand or investment(in terms of billion Rials) in agricultural, industry, mining, building and service sectors requires 137552, 27888, 6419, 1832 m2 land respectively. Also, the results of human multiplier coefficient show that for one unit demand in the agricultural sector, 4 people employed directly and indirectly. Mining sector per one unit demand or investment requires one people. The mining, building and service sectors require 3, 5 and 2 people (directly and indirectly) respectively.

Iran’s vision statement 1404, maintains that the nation needs to uphold its productivity and innovative spirit in order to enhance the economy’s competitiveness. Having considered the implications of the vision statement 1404 for the country’s sustainable development, in this paper, an attempt is made to measure Iran’s energy efficiency compared to the neighboring countries and some other nations, in the time period 2007-i2012. Using the well-known Data-Envelope Analysis methodology (DEA), we investigate whether the country has succeeded in closing the gap pertaining to the energy efficiency goals determined at the Vision Statement 1404. The study shows, however, in the time period under consideration, energy efficiency in Iran and some neighboring countries, have in fact deteriorated, due to some policy deficiency, particularly universal energy subsidies. The result clearly implies the need for a set of consistent and pro-efficiency energy policies in Iran, endured in the medium and long-run, in order to establish a reasonable path to energy efficiency level envisaged in vision statement 1404.

One of the most important strategies for governments to increase the efficiency of different economic sectors, including public services such as water, is to protect and strengthen the private sector. BOT and BOO contracts are among the most common and popular procedures of development of participation and investment from private sector. In this context, providing a good basis for the selection of investment projects using a powerful tool in order to improve the product quality and creating a qualitative customer-driven system (Quality Function Development) is very important. Therefore, the use of multi-criteria decision-making techniques, such as the similarity of the ideal options is necessary to choose the ideal investment. In this paper, a new method proposed to solve the problem of selection of investment projects by employing a powerful tool to improve product quality (Fuzzy Quality Function Deployment (F(QFD)) and Fuzzy multi-criteria decision making techniques (FTOPSIS) and then by considering the factors of risk and their impact on four important factors of the projects including: time, cost, scope and quality. Consequently, FQFD was used to calculate the weight of each risk factor, and then they were ranked by FTOPSIS algorithm based on the development of infrastructure projects and assets. Subsequently, we show through a case study of the proposed method.

The present study tries to apply the “Partial Adjustment Model” and “Random Effect Model” techniques to the Stone-Greay’s linear expenditure system, in order to estimate the "Residential Seasonal Demand" for water in Arak city. Per capita water consumption of family residences is regressed on marginal price, per capita income, price of other goods, average temperature and average rainfall. Panel data approaches based on a sample of 152 observations from Arak city referred to 1993-2003. From the estimation of the Elasticity-price of the residential water demand, we want to know how a policy of responsive pricing can lead to more efficient household water consumption in Arak city. Results also indicated that summer price elasticity was twice the winter and price and income elasticity was less than 1 in all cases.