فصلنامه برنامه ریزی و بودجه
پیاپی 143 (زمستان 1397)

One of the most attractive fields of research in applied macroeconomics is identifying the role of different shocks in business cycles. After the recent financial crisis (2007-2008), more attention has been drawn to the financial sector to explain economic fluctuations. In this study, we examine the role of financial shocks (loan supply shock, housing price shock, and stock market shock) alongside the real and monetary shocks (aggregate supply, aggregate demand, monetary policy, and investment shocks) in Iran’s business cycles. We use the sign restrictions VAR model in order to identify different shocks structurally. Two models have been estimated using the Bayesian method and seasonal data over the time period 1370:1- 1395:4 (1991:2-2017:1). The findings indicate that the financial shocks, especially the loan supply shock, are of great importance in explaining the fluctuations of the real economy. In addition, our results show that the role of financial shock is more significant in explaining the recent recession of Iran’s economy.

Being aware of the relationship between health expenditure and economic growth is an important issue in any country. Theoretically, it is expected that there is a two-way causal relationship between health expenditure and economic growth, but the relationship between these two variables should be tested empirically based on econometric techniques in different countries. Konya has proposed a new method for investigating Granger causality in a panel data framework which incorporates both coefficient heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependence. His new approach is based on SUR systems and Wald tests with country-specific bootstrap critical values. As a result, in this paper, Konya’s Bootstrap Panel Granger Causality approach has been used, based on data from D-8 countries (Bangladesh, Egypt, Nigeria, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan, and Turkey) over the period 1995-2014. The results show that the real healthcare expenditure per capita is the Granger cause of the real GDP growth in Indonesia, Iran, and Malaysia, while in Pakistan the real GDP growth is found as the Granger cause of the real healthcare expenditure per capita. There was however no evidence of causality for the other countries.

Identity is one of the most essential factors affecting the behavior,economic performance of individuals. Identity economics,as an important subset of behavioral economics,studies the impact of different components of identity on human economic behavior. This paper,emphasizing the differences between human behavior,that presented in conventional models,takes into account the social-psychological considerations by using the priming method in a field experiment on a sample of Afghan students from Tajik,Hazara ethnicity. The results show that in the multi-ethnic community of Afghanistan,the ethnicity of the Afghan people,as a crucial element of their social identity,has a significant effect on their time preferences,so that making the ethnicity salient,makes the Tajik people more present bias compared to the Hazara people. Nonetheless,without priming the ethnicity,the preference of the Hazara has more tendency towards the present.

Economic knowledge about the channels of monetary policy affecting the stock price index helps central banks to improve their assessment of economic conditions. Also, understanding the relative importance of transmission channels allows monetary authorities to foresee the outcomes of this mechanism, thus they can direct the monetary policy through the desired channel. In order to achieve this aim, a vector autoregressive model and seasonal data from 1997 to 2017 have been utilized. The results reveal that the monetary policy can influence the Tehran Stock Exchange price index, but it can not be taken as a determinant variable. The findings confirm that as a result of monetary base shocks, on average, exchange rate channel and asset price channel have the largest share in transferring monetary effects respectively, and credit channel has the least share in the stock price index.

The main purpose of this study is to assess the effect of Foreign Direct Investment on economic growth of studied countries by taking into account the asymmetric effects of financial development on the economic growth and by determining the possible threshold. For this purpose, 12 countries have been chosen from OPEC and 15 countries from OECD countries. At first, balanced panel threshold regression has been applied to evaluate hypotheses of this study. In accordance with the obtained threshold values and statistical significance test of these thresholds, it was approved that there was a non-linear and asymmetric relationship between effects of FDI and economic growth. Furthermore, the Balanced Panel method with fixed effect has been estimated during the studied period in order to assess the effect of FDI on economic growth using the estimation method of GMM. The results show that the effect of FDI on the economic growth of OPEC countries has been low due to their lack of financial development; Also, this effect not only has been decreasing investment in the countries with financial development index lower than the first threshold but also has led to weak performance and reduced economic growth. OECD countries have better financial deepening so that FDI has had a positive and significant effect on economic growth at all thresholds.

Health development requires efficient labor force to be employed in economic growth and development. This issue bears more importance in developing countries since they suffer from a shortage of human capital. This research investigates the effect of good governance in improving the government health expenditure for developing countries (2002 to 2015). Regression analysis demonstrates that government health expenditure has a positive and significant impact on the health outcome, and this effect increases with the improvement of governance. As a result, increasing the level of community health can even be done without increasing expenditures, hence resource constraints in developing countries cannot be a plausible justification. This study presents recommendations for increasing the efficiency of government expenditures.