ahmad assadzadeh

Industrial investment in Iran, especially in the wake of sanctions’ intensification in the 2010s, decreased significantly. The government implemented fiscal policy which has been associated with uncertainty. In this paper, using a dynamic panel model and generalized method of moments, we examined the effect of fiscal policy uncertainty on investment in 24 industrial groups in Iran over the period 2002-2020. The results indicated that the growth of fiscal level shock,resulted in a low but positive effect on investment directly. However,the coefficient of cross effect between the growth of fiscal level shock and the fiscal policy uncertainty undermined the positive effect on industrial investment. The government has had two effects on industrial investment indirectly through the demand side shock. By creating demand, it has had a positive effect on industrial investment with the cross effect between the growth of the fiscal level shock and industrial sales. However, on the other hand, the growth of the fiscal level shock has been associated with the creation and growth of fiscal policy uncertainty, so that the cross effect between the growth of fiscal policy uncertainty and the growth of industrial sales on industrial investment shows a high negative coefficient. The results of these two effects suggest that due to high uncertainty,the indirect government effect on investment in 24 industrial groups is negative, which happens through the demand-side shock. Moreover, the growth of fiscal policy uncertainty, sanctions, and interest rates, respectively, have had the most adverse effect on investment in 24 industrial groups in Iran.

Most tax policies are based on how taxpayers make decisions based on classical economic models. However, studies show that conventional decision-making models, which are designed without socio-psychological foundations and based only on economic components, can not explain the developments and the exact way decision-makers work. Considering that the issue of preventing tax evasion by taxpayers is very important and necessary, in this study, using mathematical modeling and scenario making tools to calculate tax crimes, the theory of behavioral economics and the theory of expected desirability have been compared.

In this research, using mathematical modeling tools and a questionnaire to calculate tax crimes, the theory of behavioral economics and the theory of expected desirability have been compared.

The results indicate that the amount of crimes calculated in the theory of behavioral economics is closer to crimes in the real world. Therefore, the obtained results are a good justification for choosing the theory of perspective instead of the theory of expected utility, and by adding the parameter of tax ethics, the amount of tax penalty in both theories is reduced.

Originality/Value: 

Since a healthy economy is an economy that is mostly based on taxes and has tried to cover government expenditures through taxes. To achieve this, the country's tax system must be reformed.

The aim of the study was to analyse the nexus among economic reform policies and the liberalization of foreign trade and its impact on the balance of trade in Iraq. The study uses the annual time series data for the period 1990-2020. The study applies the ARDL method to estimate the relationship between (exports or trade balance), and economic growth rate and Bounds test approach was used to determine the co-integration. The result of the study revealed that there is a significant negative association, which means there is a long-term relationship between them, but the relationship is very weak in the short term. Because the export parameter was weak and negative, there was no long-term impact on the link between exports and economic growth. Additionally, the results show the weak negative impact of economic growth on the trade balance in both the short and long term, which means that there is a joint integration between economic growth and the trade balance. Therefore, it is concluded that export policy in Iraq did not play a pivotal role in the foreign trade liberalisation programs, as there were many challenges that prevented the expansion and diversity of exports and international competition.

The vision of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the 1404 horizon illustrates a bright future for the country, a program that is more qualitative than a little. To achieve the objectives of the vision document, there is a need for a quantitative analysis of the indicators discussed in the document. To achieve this, economic exports as one of the major macroeconomic indicators have been simulated and predicted by Pso algorithms for Iran and Turkey. Using the bands pattern, using the four criteria of mean deviation (MSE), root mean square deviation (RMSE), absolute error percentage (MAPE) and absolute error (MAE) simulation have been performed. The results indicate that the gap between exports of  two countries has continued since 2000, with the current trend of Turkey's exports going to double the export of Iran's economy.

The purpose of this study is to examine the response of charity to tax incentives using tax returns submitted by real individuals. Since governments use tax incentive policies to attract voluntary contributions from the private sector to reduce costs, in this study, it has been tried while addressing the concept of altruistic forgiveness and tax incentives, the altruistic forgiveness in the moral economy and the effect of tax incentives on it to be investigated by using panel data during the period of 2009-2016 in eight cities of Tabriz, Isfahan, Shiraz, Urmia, Mashhad, Ahvaz, Rasht and Arak. The results of the research confirm that there is a positive and significant relationship between the income of individuals, the giving cost and age with altruistic forgiveness; this means that by increasing the income of individuals, the giving cost and age, altruistic forgiveness increases. Since a large number of job-seekers are in the middle and lower income classes and in the current situation, this group pays more for charity than the high-income group, so the cost or the price of aid should be reduced to encourage this group. On the other hand, income elasticity is 0.85 and the elasticity of giving cost is 0.06 which reflects the coordination between income and price and its effect on altruistic forgiveness. In the following, the response of charity to tax incentives using tax elasticity indicates that there is a negative and significant relationship between the tax and altruistic forgiveness.

One of the main concerns of economic scholars and thinkers is to predict the behavior of individuals in an economic system. Although economists often use complex mathematical equations for economic analysis, in recent decades due to the weakness of forecasting analyses based on equations and inability of such equations to justify empirical events, economists have used modeling and simulation methods. In other words, they are Looking for ways to justify complex phenomena in the economy as a complex system. In addition to applying complexity theory, this research attempts to introduce a research tool to scholars for the simulation of agent-based research. In this study, we will examine the efficiency of each system by developing an agent-based model based on a No-Ponzi economic system and comparing it with a Ponzi economic model. We will also examine the effects and consequences of some economic behaviors that are contrary to the ethics and teachings of Islam. Comparing the two models, the results indicate that the No-Ponzi model has a better human development index and more social welfare.

Establishing social justice and equilibrium in society is one of the most important preconditions for development. Therefore, reducing the trend of increasing inequality for policymakers in many countries is a priority. Zakat is a financial tool in the macro system of Islamic society, which plays an important role in the effective allocation of income. The purpose of this article is to describe the theory of the role of zakat as an important tool in achieving efficiency and improving human development indicators. For this purpose, the Net Logo application has been used for agent-based modeling. This paper examines the actual effects of Zakat on the distribution of wealth in Islamic economics and compares conventional and Islamic economics. The results indicate that an Islamic economic system, in general, leads to higher human development indicators than a conventional investment model system. JEL Classification: C53, P4, D630, D310, E21

Income distribution is of crucial importance for policymakers from the social justice viewpoint.  In recent years, financial tools and intermediaries have been developed in the global economy. Thus, investigating the impact of financial development on the income inequality has attracted the attention of economic researchers. Financial development affects income distribution through both channels of economic growth (directly) and increasing access to financial services (indirectly). Many studies have been conducted regarding the effects of financial development on income distribution in Iran with different methods and indicators, and even contradictory results. This study analyzes the effect of financial development on income inequality using various indicators and the structural vector auto-regression (SVAR) approach. The findings confirm the direct effect of financial development on income inequality, or the inequality-narrowing hypothesis, though they have no decisive implication on the indirect effects of financial development on income inequality, or the inequality-broadening hypothesis.

On one hand, countries dependent on oil revenue have reached the conclusion that oil cannot be a reliable source of income and the oil dependent economy has become a major challenge for oil-exporting countries. On the other hand, in recent years tourism has become one of the most dynamic sectors of global economy and income from different capacities of the tourism industry is sought to replace the income from oil sales. Medical tourism is one of the important areas of the tourism industry. In this study, the effect of institutional indicators on medical tourism in Iran have been investigated using an optimization approach. The results of the study indicate that, Improvement in institutional quality index, gross fixed capital investment in public and private hospitals, gross fixed capital in tourism services, as well as an increase in the number of service providers to medical tourists, including general practitioners and specialists, and an increase in real effective exchange rates in Iran has led to an increase in the attraction of medical tourists to the country.

The lack of capital is known to be one of the main causes of many countries’ entrapment in the vicious cycle of poverty and underdevelopment. In addition, the presence or absence of appropriate institutional quality has an impact on poverty rates in these countries. This paper examines the effects of foreign direct investment and institutional quality (rule of law) on reducing poverty. To this end, a random effect panel econometric technique is applied using MENA countries’ data for 2000–2009. The Human Development Index is used as an indicator of poverty reduction. The findings show that the foreign direct investment and the appropriate institutional quality have significant positive effects on reducing poverty and increasing welfare.

The Impact of Medical Tourism Motivational Factors on Behavioral Intentions of Tourists: The Mediating Role of Perceptual Factors and Satisfaction
Article 3, Volume 7, Issue 24, Spring 2018, Page 59-81 XML PDF (656 K)
Document Type: Research Paper
DOI: 10.22080/jtpd.2018.1824
Authors
Akbar Ghasemi Yalghouzaghaj1; Ahmad Assadzadeh 2; mohammad hosein imani Khoshkhoo3; Yunis Jabbarzadeh4
1Ph.D. Student in Economics, University of Tabriz
2Associate Professor in Economics, University of Tabriz
3Associate Professor, University of Science & Culture
4Assistant Professor in Management, University of Tabriz
Abstract
Extended Abstract : Medical tourism constitutes one of the most important sectors of the tourism industry with many economic and social benefits. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of motivational factors on Medical tourism on behavioral intention. In terms of aim, this study is applied and in terms of data collection method is descriptive-analytical. For data analysis, structural equation modeling has been used. A total of 285 questionnaires were distributed randomly among the statistical population of the study. To assess the validity of the questionnaire content validity, factor analysis, convergent and differential validity were used. Cronbach's alpha value was more than 80%. The results show that there is a positive and significant relationship between the motivational and perceptual factors of medical tourists and their behavioral intention. The quality factor has the greatest impact on the perceived target image and behavioral intention while perceived quality has the greatest impact on the behavioral intention of tourists. Considering that the development of medical tourism requires a systematic and comprehensive look, it is necessary to develop an appropriate strategy to increase the number of medical tourists in the destinations by coordination of the organizations involved in this sector at macro and micro levels.
Medical tourism is one of the most important branches of the tourism industry, which has a lot of economic and social benefits (Zimenska, 2015). Connell (2013) states that medical tourism is used to improve health, including more aggressive methods and medical examinations. According to Guy Coe's (2011) view, the components of a medical tourism system are: a) medical tourists; b) medical tourist generating regions; tourism destinations regions; c) service providers. Pontrich and Stefano (2016) have developed a health tourism index using a drain-tensile model. This indicator consists of four factors of the country's environment, tourism destination, medical tourism costs and medical services and facilities. Wo et al. (2016) show that empirical quality has a positive effect on patient trust, satisfaction, and perceived value. The patient's trust and perceived value have a positive effect on patient's satisfaction. Patient's trust, patient satisfaction and perceived value as a mediator have a positive effect on patient's behavioral intention. Han and Hyun (2015) have studied the impact of quality, satisfaction, trust, and reasonable prices on customer care in the medical tourism industry. The findings show that perceived quality, satisfaction and trust have a significant effect on the intention to return to clinics and destination countries. Considering the importance of effective factors in the attraction of medical tourists and its impact on behavioral intention in this study, the impact of motivational factors of medical tourism on the behavioral tendencies of tourists as well as the perceptual factors of destination image, quality and perceived value, and satisfaction of all medical tourists are discussed.
Materials and Methods : In terms of aim, the purpose of this study is applied and in terms of data collection method it is descriptive and analytical. In the field of data collection, the questionnaire was used as the tool measurement. The statistical population of the study was medical tourists referred to the medical centers of the East Azerbaijan province. To collect data, simple random sampling method was used to complete the questionnaires by foreign patients referring to health centers. In the present study, based on the size of the statistical population, 285 statistical samples were collected and for data analysis, testing the hypothesis and fitness of the model, the structural equation models and partial least squares method were used.
Discussion and Results : There is a positive and significant relationship between the perceived target image of medical tourists and the factors of cost, quality, destination and technical infrastructure. So that medical tourists have percepted the qualıty effects of the health and medical servıces (path coefficient 0.339) compared to the effects of the technical and specialized infrastructure (path coefficient 0.301), destination effects (path coefficient 0.199) and cost (path coefficient 0.101) more powerful They understand.
Conclusions : The findings of the research indicate that the motivational factor of the quality and the technical and specialized infrastructure relative to the factors of cost and destination have a greater impact on the perceived target image and the perceived factors of the medical tourists. The development of technical and specialized infrastructure, including: proper amenities and accommodation, the use of an international language translator and a provider of tourism and the development of electronic communications for the provision of medical advice before and after treatment, reducing waiting time for treatment, improving equipment and medical facilities are proposed to improve the quality of health and medical services to attract foreign tourists and expand export healthcare services.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors affecting medical tourism attraction in East Azerbaijan province. The research method was descriptive-analytic and the statistical population of this research was directors and experts in health and medical tourism. Ten people were selected using purposeful sampling. The factors that attract medical tourism include: cost, quality, destination and technical and specialized infrastructure. These factors were first confirmed by experts. Then, using multi-criteria decision making methods, DEMATEL and ANP fuzzy matrix of internal communication between factors and their importance were examined. The findings of the research indicate that among the 24 identified factors, 12 factors related to cost, quality and technical and specialized factors as factors affecting medical tourism attraction were identified and evaluated. Also, the destination factor has the least impact on the other factors and at the same time most influenced by other factors. The results show low cost of treatment, the suitability of the price of services, low travel, low cost of health care, low cost of residence, the reputation of specialist doctors, relatives and friends advice of the quality of doctors, high quality of the treatment, marketing, advertising and branding of medical services of the region, the availability of facilities for medical consultation with a foreign patient before and after treatment, the existence of international standards of hospitals and modern medical equipment in the region have owned more than 60% of the weight and importance of attraction factors of medical tourism.

Even though, the revenue from the sales of crude oil has accounted for much of the state's revenues, tax revenues, on the other hand contributes to a large and growing share of the government budget. Based on the literature, the financial system has an important influence on economic growth and hence the study of the empirical relationship between financial system and tax revenues is vital and will help policy makers in achieving the objectives of economic growth and reducing the country’s dependence on oil revenues. The purpose of this research is to study the effect of banking and stock market activities on the tax revenues in Iran. In this regard, an Auto Regressive Distributed Lag Model was used applying seasonal data for 2000-2013 period. The results of the model estimation revealed different effects of banking and stock market activities on the tax revenues.The results indicated that banking and stock market activities had a significant and positive effect on tax revenues.

Food security has been a global problem and has attracted the attention of policy-maker and scientific circles. So, the purpose of this study is calculating food security in provinces and identifying variables that strengthen or stopping it. In this regard, first food security situation of the provinces of Iran during 2006 - 2013 are calculated with multi- sectoral index based on human development index. The result shows that on average provinces of Sistan and Baluchistan, Hormozgan and South Khorasan have worst food security situation and East Azerbaijan, Khorasan and Fars have the highest food security situation. Then examine the impact of economic factors on food security with Dynamic Panel Data method. The result suggests that economic growth index is a positive factor, urbanization and consumption price are negative factors in improving food security index. The result of Sensitivity analysis reinforces the same result.

There are several ways for bandwidth allocation for users acting based on policy of network administrators in computer networks. Due to the diversity of users and so amount of bandwidth usage per user, providing suitable bandwidth rate to meet their needs in various situations play an important role in terms of performance and implementation of bandwidth management systems. In this paper, we propose a dynamic and balanced approach, called normal weight allocation for determining amount of bandwidth for each user taking into account the importance of user in caomparision with other online concurrent users. In this regard, to obtain a user weight as the importance of user, we apply Fuzzy AHP technique for eliciting indecisive expert ideas. Ease of implementation and taking the advantage of maximal usage of available bandwidth are the features of the proposed approach.

Despite the explosive growth of electronic payment systems, banknotes and coins still play an important role in retail payments. Optimal combination of currency has significant impact on cash payment system efficiency and reduces costs of production and distribution of currency. This paper aims to optimize the ratio of each denomination in the combination of banknotes and coins. To achieve this objective, the allocation of banknotes and coins in retail prices of goods and services consumed by households is used inspired by the greedy algorithm in MATLAB software environment. The results show that economy needs more low value currencies. In order to economic performance and to prevent losses a model for optimal distribution, larger note and new denominations issuance have been proposed.

The aim of this research was to estimate the components of cultural capital of Iran's provinces. So, the definition provided by Throsby is used for cultural capital. According to this definition, cultural capital is as a stock of tangible and intangible cultural expressions, the stock of tangible cultural capital exists in buildings, structures, sites and locations endowed with cultural significance (heritage) and in artworks and artifacts existing as private goods. Intangible cultural capital comprises the set of ideas, practices, beliefs, traditions. Therefore, using 36 variables related to cultural capital, the required data was collected and normalized. Then cultural capital and its trend have been calculated for the 28 provinces from 2002 to 2013. The results indicate that Markazi Province has the highest average of cultural capital and Sistan and Baluchestan Province, has the lowest average of cultural capital during the period under study. Also, on average, the highest cultural capital in the period under review is in 2012 and the lowest cultural capital is in 2003.

Capital flight is a term which refers to unregistered domestic capital flows that include a broad variety of activities ranging from the legal and economically beneficial to those that are illegal and harmful to the economy. Researchers concern the most about capital flight which implicitly implies to illegal movements of capital from one country to another. In this paper، we will evaluate the effects of capital flight on total investment. We use data from 2005 until 2011 of chosen countries of MENA zone. Estimation methods are IRLS and GMM. In order to regard bias in estimation، IRLS method is used. In GMM method، growth rate is considered as endogenous variable. Results of both methods indicate that there is a negative relationship between capital flight and total investment. So that if capital flight increase for 1 percent، total investment would decrease for 0. 07 percent.

Impulse buying behavior has a determinable role in developing the power of computability in the current consumer markets. Hence، recognizing and improving of the facilitating factors of impulse behavior is a necessity for increasing the profitability of such businesses. This research examines the effects of individual، environmental and fashion involvement factors by considering the mediator effect of positive sense factor on fashion involvement factor. The research method is descriptive and correlational. The population of the research consists of buyers going to Tehran’s great bazaar. A sample of 276 subjects was selected as statistical sampling. Structural equation model was used for data analysis and testing of research hypotheses. The results showed that the individual and environmental factors directly، and fashion involvement factors by considering the mediator effect of positive sense have positive effect on impulse buying. Finally، according to research findings، some suggestions are presented.

Oil plays an important role in the Iranian economy. Thus it is necessary to study of the effect of changes in oil revenues on other sectors of the economy. The paper investigates the dynamic effects of oil shocks on government health spending during the1979-2010periods. To study the effects of oil price shocks on the Iranian government expenditure in the health sector the vector autoregressive model (VAR) and impulse response functions are used. The selection of model variables was based on economic common theories and the Akaike criterion was used to determine the optimal number of lags in the model. The Engel-Granger test confirmed the existence of a long-term equilibrium relationship between oil revenues and health spending. Also, the impulse response functions showed that a positive shock equaling one standard deviation in Iran's oil revenue would increase the government health expenditure for 8 consecutive periods, then decreases, and finally, after16periods become negative. In Iran, health expenditures are largely influenced by the country's oil revenues, so that a rise in the country’s oil revenue leads to an increase in health expenditures for a relatively long period of time.

Objective (s): Healthcare system can have direct and indirect effects on a country’s income and output. This paper examines the impact of per capita public and private health expenditures on per capita GDP for Iran during 1379 – 1384. For the model selection and estimation the panel data econometrics were used and for the estimation of coefficients the EViews software was applied. The data were explored using regression analysis and statistical inference. The results obtained from panel model with fixed effects estimation showed that government per capita health expenditures had positive (0. 85) and significant effect on GDP per capita. The results indicated that per capita private health expenditures had also positive (0. 08) effect on GDP، though this effect was not statistically significant. The positive and significant effect of public sector expenditures on healthcare emphasizes the prominent and leading role of the government in improving healthcare and per capita income in the country. In addition، the positive effect of private sector spending on healthcare indicated that government should pave the way for private and NGOs activities.

Regional trade، boosted by trade integration and regional cooperation، is an important factor for countries trade growth. Free trade zones often facilitate trade between countries and increases trade. Aras free zone could works as a connecting bridge between Asia and Europe and enhances trade and economic growth. This study attempts to investigate the role and status of Aras free trade-industrial zone in trade development though the estimation of trade potentials with CIS countries، China and Turkey as the main trade partners in the region. The estimates of export and import potentials revealed the existence of high trade potentials between Aras free trade zone and aforementioned countries. Also، the results of trade complementarity estimates using cosine index indicated that Georgia، Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan had the highest export complementarity while، China، Turkey and Belarus had the highest import complementarity in the region. The study shows that given the current trade between Aras free trade zone and the countries، it is possible to increase trade volume by about ten folds.

Objective (s): The catastrophic medical payment is one of the most important concerns in low income and developing countries. Iran is one of the countries that out-of-pocket payment is a major method for health care، which may result in catastrophic expenditure. This study aims to identify factors that influence catastrophic health expenditures (CHE) by patients in of Tabriz، Iran in year in 2011-2012. 300 patients were selected from patients hospitalized in general hospitals. The information was collected by a questionnaire and the Stata software and Heckman model. The results indicated that the proportion of households with CHE was 30%. The results of Heckman selection model indicated that factors such as age (elderly people)، and gender (female patients) were associated with higher CHE. The results of the orderd-probit selection model demonstrated that elderly person، children، person with chronic diseases، admission to a private hospital and lower household wealth were major factors contributing to the increased probability of the CHE. The findings demonstrated that the use of expensive hospitalized care and lower economic status increased the households’ exposure to catastrophic expenditures.

In recent years، the application of information technology has been remarkably increased in the service sector in general and in the banking industry in particular. The application of IT paved the way for internet banking، electronic payment، and enhanced security in investment and communication. This study investigates the effect of ICT (points of sale، ATM، branch pin pad) on the profitability of the selected banks in Iran. The empirical model includes bank asset return as dependent variable، whereas the explanatory variables consist of concentration ratio، bank size، bank’s market share، branch pin pad، POS and ATM. To estimate the specified model، unbalanced panel approach is employed using the data over the period 2002-2009. The results suggest that the application of ICT has positive and statistically significant effect on banks performance in Iran.