International Journal of New Political Economy
Volume:1 Issue: 1, Winter - Spring 2020

One can talk about the relationship between Economics and Politics in two distinct, and at the same time, intermingled framework; classic and modern relationship. The first one emerges from the dawning of economic science itself. Due to that natural relationship between economics and politics, economics was called “Political Economy”. The second relationship between economics and politics is much more novel one. This is analyzing politics by using economic methodology. Nevertheless, both the above approaches are in the context of famous expression that is “Political Economy”. By benefiting from the interdisciplinary method, this article is highlighting the potential relationships between economics and politics. Meanwhile, one of the key mission of this note is concentrating on some substantive relationships between these two distinct disciplines and their interdisciplinary dimensions.

As it is seen, this work is actually an unpublished  materials  regarding a book project.  In this book I attempt to argue for a radically new understanding of the ethics of business enterprises or “corporate responsibility” in the global context. It is new in three respects. First, the purpose of the economy is defined as creating wealth in a comprehensive sense. As a consequence, business enterprises as primarily economic entities are called to pursue this purpose that lies beyond maximizing profit or adding value. Second, business enterprises operate in an increasingly interconnected world. They consist of human beings and affect human beings from the local to the global level. To evaluate their impact, we have worldwide standards stipulated in international agreements: the human rights including civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights and the right to development. With the United Nations Framework (2008) and the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UN 2011) business enterprises have become accountable in a new way – in addition to States – for their impact on human rights. Third, not only individual business people but also business enterprises as organizations – independent of the duties of nation-states – carry moral obligations regarding human rights. This means that moral (and not only legal) obligations are attributed to organizations understood as moral actors (but not as moral persons). Without such theoretical underpinning, it would not make sense to talk of environmental, social or economic responsibilities of corporations.

Iran has a long history and a short-term society. It is a country with thousands of years of history, the great variety of every aspect of which is at least partly responsible for the diversity of opinions and emotions among its peoples. It is an ancient land of the utmost variety in nature, art and architecture, languages, literature and culture. When the Greeks (from whom European civilisations descend) came across the Iranians first, Persian Iranians were ruling that country as the Persian empire, and they called it ‘Persis’. Just as when the Persians first came into contact with Ionian Greeks, they called the entire Greek lands ‘Ionia’. To this day Iranians refer to Greece as Ionia (=Yunan) and the Greeks as Ionians (=Yunaniyan). Thus from the ancient Greeks to 1935, Iran was known to Europeans as Persia; then the Iranian government, prompted by their crypto-Nazi contacts in Germany, demanded that other countries officially call it Iran, largely to publicise the Aryan origins of the country.  This meant that, for a long time, almost the entire historical and cultural connotations of the country were lost to the West, the country often being confused with Iraq, and many if not most mistakenly thinking that it too was an Arab country.

This article is organized around two levels of analysis: the newly emerging international order and how this new order impacts the Middle East. The hypothesis in this article substantiates that, “for the most part, the geo-economic and geo-politics of the Middle East are the outcome of conflicts, structural-political differences and competition among the major players in the region.” Furthermore, the hypothesis proposes that US, European and Russian activities in the Middle East seek to assert a role of conflict management rather than conflict resolution. This article adopts the conceptual framework of Robert Kagan who promotes the idea that political influence is a function of trade and economic expansion. This article will draw on the US economy, new Russian ambitions, the Obama legacy in foreign policy, Israeli motivational structure to explain the emerging bipolar system in the Middle East. The nature of this system will depend on the financial capabilities of the regional actors as well as the ongoing dynamics of Russian-American competition in the Middle East.

In this research, we tried to analyze the forecast error of the tax revenue forecasting in Iran using the Fan chart method. In this regard, using data during the period of 1974-2016 and Bayesian linear regression model, Iran’s tax revenue be forecasted and its uncertainty is derived from uncertainty in correlated macroeconomic variables. Internalizing subjective assessments of the macro variables, the tax revenue forecast skewness be obtained. In most cases, the uncertainty of macro variables’ are based on their historical standard deviation. However, in the present study, we allow the uncertainty of macro variables to be adjusted subjectively, if there is a reason to be less or more uncertain than their historical standard deviations. A subjective balance of risk assessment, that whether the distributions are symmetric or non symmetric, is also used. The results show that the fan chart method has high efficiency in depicting the forecast uncertainty of tax revenue and can be used in the budget preparation and Formulation in Iran.

In recent decades, an increasing emphasis has been placed on the role of productivity improvement in economic growth, especially in developing countries such as Iran. In this context, one of the main factors influencing the productivity and efficiency is information and communication technology (ICT). International experiences in economic growth, from supply side point of view, imply that ICT deployment has played a significant role in value added creation, especially in economic sub-sectors which are more ICT -intensive. In this paper, we are going to assess the ICT impact on economic growth in Iran in a quantitative framework by using provincial data. In so doing, we apply parametric & non-parametric approaches (Panel Data & DEA techniques) in order to understand the average impact of ICT on economic growth (known as ICT productivity) as well as the relative status of provinces in terms of ICT contribution to economic growth (known as economic efficiency). Results of estimations imply that ICT could positively contribute to the economic growth and the relative economic efficiency of provinces in value added creation. Meanwhile, upon omitting ICT from our basic model, the efficiencies of provinces collapse significantly.

This paper investigates empirically the Kuznets environmental curve in nineteen industrialized countries by using updated techniques in time series analysis and based on the concepts of long range dependence and fractional integration. Unlike most of the literature that focuses on integer degrees of differentiation, we consider more flexible approaches allowing, for example, for mean reverting nonstationary behaviour using fractional integration. The results indicate first that the orders of integration of the series substantially change across the series and the countries examined, and mean reversion is found in a number of cases. When looking at the relationship between emissions and economic activity, evidence of the Kuznets curve is found in some countries, this hypothesis being strongly supported in the cases of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the UK and the USA.

Religious institutions have currently emerged as more powerful actors than ever before in many Muslim countries. This matter necessitates reassessing the role of organized religion in policy-making processes in such countries. This paper is a comparative study, analyzing the role of the religious institutions, as pressure groups, in government policy in Pakistan and Turkey. Since there have been very few research projects working on comparative studies on religious pressure groups in Muslim-majority countries, this paper seeks to fill the gap through secondary research. The findings indicate that in Turkey, the common aims and interests have bound the Islamic parties and institutions together, currently emerging as a powerful political actor, challenging the strict secular system of the country. Nonetheless, the Pakistani institutions have increasingly exchanged violence for the implementation of Islamic law. The Turkish Islamic movement have a more united structure than the Pakistani ones. Nonetheless, the role and status of such groups have significantly changed over time in both countries. Likewise, amongst the two countries’ religious institutions, the Turkish mostly use civic tactics to gain power from the people, while the Pakistani ones undertake sabotage activities as leverage against the government.

This study investigates the effect of electronic payment system on the performance of the financial sector in selected Islamic countries including Iran, Indonesia, Jordan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Egypt, Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. Reaching this purpose, the study uses annual panel data from 2011 until 2017. The results show that all electronic payment indicators including Mobile Bank, Internet Bank, Bank Card, POS machine and ATM positively and significantly affect the financial sector performance. It is also found that economic growth and population have a significant positive effect on financial sector performance. Inflation aKey Words: Electronic Payment Systems, Financial Sectornd interest rate negatively and sigThis study investigates the effect of electronic payment system on the performance of the financial sector in selected Islamic countries including Iran, Indonesia, Jordan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Egypt, Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. Reaching this purpose, the study uses annual panel data from 2011 until 2017. The results show that all electronic payment indicators including Mobile Bank, Internet Bank, Bank Card, POS machine and ATM positively and significantly affect the financial sector performance. It is also found that economic growth and population have a significant positive effect on financial sector performance. Inflation aKey Words: Electronic Payment Systems, Financial Sectornd interest rate negatively and significantly affect the financial sector performance.nificantly affect the financial sector performance.