Iranian Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Finance
Volume:5 Issue: 1, Winter 2021

One of the most parameters and variables in every economics is the interest rate. Government officials and lawmakers change interest rates for various purposes controlling liquidity, inflation, and prices, Economic growth and development, lending, etc. So, it is important to set the interest rate correctly. If you can predict the interest rate correctly, you can earn and gain profit by investing in various sectors. Moreover, the interest rate can impact other sectors through parallel markets such as the stock market, automobile, housing, etc. Interest rates are related to parallel markets. Thus, if you can forecast the interest rate, you can predict the parallel markets too. The main goal of this article, as it is clear from the title, is the prediction of interest rate using ANN and improving the network using some novel heuristic algorithms such as Moth Flame Optimization algorithm (MFO), Chimp Optimization Algorithm (CHOA), Time-varying Correlation Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm (TVAC-PSO), etc. we used 17 variables such as oil price, gold coin price, house price, etc. as input variables. We used GA and a new algorithm called Grey Wolf Optimization, Particle Swarm Optimization (GWO-PSO) algorithm as a feature selection and choosing the best variables. We have used eight loss functions such as MSE, RMSE, MAE, etc. too. Finally, we have compared different algorithms due to their estimation errors. The main contribution of this paper is that, first, this is for the first time which these novel metaheuristic algorithms have been used for the prediction of interest rate. Second, it has tried to use different graphs and tables for better understanding and totally a comprehensive research paper. The results show that Whale Optimization Algorithm (WOA) performed better than other methods along with less error.

Banks, as financial and service institutions, play a decisive role in the circulation of money and wealth of society, and therefore have a special place in the economy of any country. Therefore, banks' favorable and effective activity can have important effects on the growth of various economic sectors and increase the quantity and quality of production. Today, Islamic banking requires new methods, effective customer orientation, presentation of new technologies, servicing and services expected by the customer, and any bank that is more successful in those matters, succeeds in attracting resources in a competitive market. As a result, more durability and survival will increase with productivity. E-banking is one of the most important options for banks to achieve these goals. The present study examines the effect of E-banking on bank fees and returns on assets as indices of Islamic banking performance. In order to test the research hypotheses, multiple regression methods and statistics and information of 8 banks in the period 2005-2015 have been used. According to the results, E-banking has a positive and significant effect on both factors of Islamic banking performance, i.e., bank fees and return on assets index.

This study aims to investigate the effect of business strategy and corporate governance on maintaining cash balance policies in companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange. Accordingly, the annual data of 108 listed companies on the Tehran Stock Exchange during 2011 to 2019, unit root panel tests of Im, Pesaran, and Shim and Levin–Lin–the Chu was used. In addition, the f test was used to select one of the panel data and pooled data methods, and the Hausman test was used to select one of the fixed effects and random-effects models. This study showed that the company's strategy had a negative and significant effect on the cash balance of listed companies on the Tehran Stock Exchange. Thus, it can be stated that with increasing the company's prospector business strategies, the need for investment and innovation in the company will increase. Accordingly, companies' cash balance will decrease. Also, with an increase in the proportion of non-executive members on the board, the cash balance of companies decreased due to the lack of attention to voluntary opportunities, so the cash balance decreased significantly.

The portion of non-physical capital like knowledge in the corporations' value has been consistently increasing in the last three decades. However, the measurement for these factors has always been under question. The Intellectual Capital (IC) measurement models were a solution for the measurement. This study proposed a measurement model for IC in Iran. After reviewing and summarizing the other methods' dimensions and measures, it used two qualitative methods. In the first step, some in-depth interviews were done. The interviewees were provided with the detail of the previous models' summary. Their ideas were used to limit the number of variables in the next step. Then a group of 97 experts was asked to fulfill a questionnaire. Finally, the questionnaires were analyzed by the Fuzzy Delphi method. The result shows a measurement model with three dimensions (human, relational and structural capital), eight components, and 21 indicators (measures). This model is the first model, which is designed based on the Iranian experts' ideas. Furthermore, the first model provides all the model's indicators, components, and dimensions.

The present study deals with the relationship between a corporate social responsibility disclosure and intellectual capital considering the role of block holder ownership moderation incorporates listed on Tehran Stock Exchange, and one of the points of the present study for which we are seeking an explanation is the social responsibility and intellectual capital status of corporates with block holder ownership. In terms of aim, this study is applied research and is correlational-descriptive in terms of methodology. The study population consists of all corporates accepted in Tehran Stock Exchange after sampling, 147; the period is 6 years (2011-2016). To measure corporate social responsibility, the method of Content Analysis has been used based on the information checklist and its coding, and measuring the intellectual capital has been done using Pulic Model (2000). Furthermore, to test the hypotheses of the present study, Multiple Regular Regression and OLS (Ordinary Least Squares) have been used with the help of the software Eviews. The study results show a significant relationship between corporate social responsibility disclosure and intellectual capital; also, block holder ownership significantly affects corporate social responsibility disclosure and intellectual capital.

The present study aims to assess the relationship between auditor’s narcissism, expectation gap, and audit fee in listed firms on the Tehran Stock Exchange. In other words, this study attempts to answer the question of “whether a narcissistic auditor contributes to the expectation gap and the amount of fee or not.” The multivariate regression model is used for hypothesis testing. The study's hypotheses were also tested using a sample of 768 listed year-firm on the Tehran Stock Exchange during 2012-2017 by applying the panel data approach and employing the fixed effects model. The obtained results also indicate that there is a positive and significant relationship between auditor’s narcissism and expectation gap and a negative and significant relationship exists between auditor’s narcissism and audit fee, which means that the increase of narcissistic features in an auditor would increase the expectation gap between auditor and users. In contrast, the presence of such features in the auditor affects its payment. Moreover, the results of hypothesis testing show that there is a negative and significant relationship between auditor change and audit expectation gap. This study utilized an empirical model for evaluating the audit expectation gap and the variable of signature magnitude for measuring narcissism. Further, this paper is the first study to assess such a relationship. Hence, the present study contributes to developing science and knowledge in this field and helps lawmakers present more effective standards and regulations based on society's needs and the obtained results.

The present study investigates the relationship between audit outputs (including audit quality, type of opinion, audit fee, and timeliness) and managerial entrenchment in firms listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange. The multivariate regression model is used for hypothesis testing, research hypotheses were tested using a sample of 678 listed observations on the Tehran Stock Exchange during 2012-2017, and the exploratory factor analysis of 12 variables (including CEO duality, financial expertise, and CEO industry, board compensation, managerial ownership, tenure, and CEO consistency, board independence, financial expertise, and board industry, correlation and board effort) is used for examining managerial entrenchment. As expected, the results show a significant relationship between audit outputs and managerial entrenchment, such that audit fee and audit quality are negatively associated with managerial entrenchment, and the relationship between report delay and type of opinion and managerial entrenchment is positive and significant. By adding new variables to measuring managerial entrenchment, the present study provides a better evaluation of this index. Moreover, it contributes to the field because the previous studies have benefited from limited proxies for this purpose.