نشریه اقتصاد دفاع و توسعه پایدار
پیاپی 28 (تابستان 1402)

Empirical literature on the relationship between military spending and unemployment presents heterogeneous and different findings. A group of studies show that military spending can help reduce unemployment, while another group has concluded that military spending exacerbates unemployment. A group also shows that there is no relationship between military spending and unemployment. According to this, Lee (2021) using a theoretical model including supply-side effect, demand-side effect and security effect caused by military spending in the form of a random endogenous model shows that the relationship between military burden and unemployment (employment) is non-linear and U-shaped (U reverse). In this regard, the main goal of this article is the empirical test of this hypothesis in 171 countries of the world during the years 2001-2020. For this purpose, the effect of military burden on the unemployment rate has been modeled by using the theoretical literature and applying the threshold panel method. The results show that the effect of military burden on unemployment is non-linear and in the form of a U-shaped relationship. The threshold level value of military spending is also estimated at 1.61% of GDP. In other words, before the threshold level, the military burden had a negative and significant effect on the unemployment rate; But after crossing this threshold level, the military burden has a positive and significant effect on the unemployment rate, which confirms the hypothesis of Lee (2021).

The aim of the present paper is to examine the role of political factors and their interaction with economic factors on the defense budget Islamic Republic of Iran via the policies adopted by the government. This paper can be classified as mixed exploratory research and is carried out in two qualitative and quantitative stages. The statistical population of this research is comprised of managers and experts active in economic and defense fields. Accordingly, the research sample was chosen through a selective non-random sampling method, identifying 17 experts. Subsequently, we used the Available Cluster Sampling method to identify a statistical sample of 385 people and managed to collect answers to 320 questionnaires. The results indicate that political factors have a significant (at the error level of less than 1 percent) effect on the defense budget of the Republic of Iran, through shaping the policies adopted by the government. Furthermore, the intensity of the influence of political factors on the defense budget through the policies adopted by the government is estimated at 0.333. On the hand, we find that the effect of economic factors on the defense budget through the policies adopted by the government is significant at the error level of less than 1% and estimate their intensity of its impact at 0.538. Finally, we find that the resultant effect of the interaction between political factors and economic factors on the defense budget to be not significant at the error level of less than 1%, hence the resultant effect of the interaction between these two factors on the defense budget could not be confirmed.

With the occurrence of the Islamic Revolution and the existence of a conflict in the type of worldview and its ideology with the worldview and ideology propagated in the West, the Iranian economy is in a state called economic war. Then, there is a need to present strategies called economic passive defense. In this study, Emphasizing sanctions as a tool of economic warfare, resistance economics has been considered as an upstream document and standard for developing economic passive defense criteria in accordance with the conditions of Iran's economy. In this study, after interviewing elites and experts in the field of resistance economics and economic passive defense, Components and criteria of economic passive defense model identified as strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in the areas of deterrence, vulnerability reduction and continuity of activities in the form of SWOT table. Finally, the ANP method is used to analyze and rank the strategies in the form of SWOT-ANP method. Accourding to the results, 15 strengths, 26 weaknesses, 9 opportunity points and 10 threat points were identified. The results showed that among the main criteria, the weakness with a weight of 0.316 is first, the strength is second (0.298), the criterion of opportunity is third (0.237) and the criterion of threat is fourth (0.149). Also among the 4 strategies identified, WO strategy with a weight of 0.4 ranked first, WT strategy ranked second (0.23), SO strategy ranked third (0.209) and ST strategy with a weight of 0.157 ranked fourth.

Recently, many analysts have charted the rise of great power competition over the global distribution of power amidst the current flux and emerging dynamics which are reshaping the global order (and themselves are largely driven by governments and security actors). Currently, India is a major power in the Indo-Pacific region by the virtue of its GDP and military power. By utilizing library-method of data collection and a descriptive-analytical research method, this article seeks to examine the implications of India's emergence as a great power for the American dominance over world order. The paper proposes the hypothesis that the emergence of new powers weakens unipolarity, thus, leading to a bipolar or multipolar world order. The paper further argues that over the short-term horizon India will further entrench its status as a regional hegemon in the Indo-Pacific region, whilst over the long-term horizon it will emerge as a great power in the international order. The results obtained indicate that India is gradually taking over the power share of the larger countries, namely China and the US, and reshaping the regional power balance in its favor. India's growing power may prima facie seem to pose a challenge to the US-led world order, which is currently in need of new comprehensive arrangements that reshape the balance of power internationally. However, it should be noted that India’s strategic outlook which is based on cooperation and partnership with the US for containing the rise of China, which in turn implies that its regional leadership initiative could ultimately strengthen American hegemony in the Indo-Pacific.

This study examines the effects of economic sanctions on the macroeconomic indicators of the Iranian economy by considering ‘oil income shocks’, ‘primary materials import shocks’, ‘exchange rate shocks’ and ‘net capital inflow shocks’. Furthermore the examines the effects of economic sanctions on macroeconomic variables such as ‘Gross Domestic Product’, ‘Consumer Price Index’, ‘Tax Revenues’, ‘Investment’, and ‘Consumption’ by using a Structural Vector Autoregression (SVAR) model. Subsequently, after conducting statistical analysis and stationary test of the variables and determining the optimal interval, Impulse Response Functions (IRF) were extracted. The results of the study indicate that over the short term: (a) the shocks resulting from the exchange rate fluctuations and the import of raw materials respectively have had the most negative effects on macro-economic variables, whilst (b) Consumer price index, investment, gross domestic product, and tax revenues have been most negatively impacted by economic sanctions, respectively. On the other hand, over the long term: (a) the shocks resulting from the import of raw materials and the exchange rate have had the most negative effects on macroeconomic variables, whilst (b) the Consumer Price Index and consumption have been most negatively influenced by shocks resulting from the sanctions, respectively.

In recent years, the advent and development of new forms of e-currencies has threatened national currencies issued by central banks (which perform various functions on terms of exchanges and monetary policy). In view of the foregoing, Central Banks are trying to develop cryptocurrencies that perform both the functions of decentralized digital currencies whilst preserving the sovereignty of the national currencies. Various Cases of this effort are currently being trialed or studied on an experimental basis in many countries. This study investigates the effects wrought by the issuance of digital currencies by the Central Bank on the macro economy of Iran. For this purpose, the methodology of this paper relies on the analysis of data from interviews and questionnaires.The results obtained indicate that the issuance of digital currencies by central banks can be effective in improving the nominal-monetary variables of the economy. Furthermore, among the other positive effects of the issuance of digital currencies include; enhancing the efficiency of monetary policy tools; increasing the efficacy of monetary policy platforms such as the interbank lending markets; improving monetary transfer mechanisms such as the payment system, improving the efficiency of financing and investment.