Economics Research

Abstract  
The purpose of this paper is to design a unique pricing system (price-cap) for Iran's water and wastewater industry to ensure fair pricing for its customers, encourage effective investment planning, and improve corporate productivity and efficiency. To this end, the translog frontier cost function form using the panel- data of thirty-five (35) water and wastewater companies over the period 2012-2017 is used to calculate the aforementioned components and X-factor and use it in the price-cap model for a five-year period, has been used. The price ceiling decreasing for the most efficient company was 2% and for the most inefficient company was 28%. In other words, in the first year of implementation of the price ceiling adjustment model, the most efficient water and wastewater company will be allowed to decrease its base or initial price by 2%, but the most inefficient company will be allowed to more decrease by 28%. It is this incentive that fulfills the purpose of implementing the price-cap model as an incentive regulation method.

Abstract Banking system, as one of the most important parts of macroeconomy, plays a vital role in general economic equilibrium and transition of economic shocks in the society. Because of that, it is of sensitive role in national economy. In addition to implementing dictated monetary policies of central banks, they as any economic business, pursue the goal of increasing their profitability. In this study, we use Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) and take into account five economic sectors, namely households, entrepreneurs, mediator banks, distributors and government, to study the reaction of banks to emergence of monetary shocks. For this purpose, the authors seek to make use of long-term macroeconomic parameters. The results of our model show that, upon emergence of a positive shock on interest rate, due to the decrease of request for loan and the amount of lent money, the rate of loaning and as a result, the profit of banks is reduced, and in the case of a positive oil shock, the amount of market liquidity increases so the rate of loaning decreases and the scale of investment increases and finally, the households’ willingness to save is reduced. Therefore, the outcome of decrease of lending rate and decrease of deposits leads to a reduction in banks’ profitability.

Abstract   Estimations and calculations show that the ICT market in Iran was around 320 billion IRRs in 2015, which is about 2.6% of gross domestic production (GPD). at the end of the sixth plan for social and economic development of Iran, it has been set that this amount should be increased to be more than 5% of GDP and to be about 1000 billion IRRs. The present study will answer the following two questions. 1- Is increasing the share of ICT sector in GDP necessary? 2- How much does the economic growth change with one percentage increase in share of ICT sector in GDP? To answer these two questions, contribution of ICT sector on economic growth in Iran is first calculated through two methods of actual and potential contribution and then compared with each other. The results show that average GDP growth in Iran is about 3.8% for the period of 1990-2015 and, based on growth accounting, the potential contribution of ICT on economic growth is about half a percent. Actual contribution of ICT sector on growth has been higher than the potential share, except for years 1990 to 1992. Therefore, increasing value added of ICT sector increases GDP more than the increase of the value added of ICT sector, which is due to knowledge, market and network spillovers. Accordingly, increasing share of ICT sector in GDP is necessary during the sixth plan for economic development in Iran. Moreover, one percent increase in share of ICT sector in GDP increases economic growth at a rate of 0.93 percent.

Abstract One of the most important economic challenges that every economy of the world is facing is how to reach to a sustained growth in the long run. The aim of this research is to survey about the effects of business cycle volatility on economic growth in Iran from 1340 to 1387. Some of the variables used in this research were growth of gross national product, volatility of business cycles, inflation, inflation uncertainty and the index of financial depth. In this survey, at first the volatility of business cycles and inflation uncertainty were computed by generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscdasticity model. Then we estimated the effects of volatility cycles in the long run for economic growth by using co-integration test and vector erorr correction Model. The results of this estimation show that the business cycle volatility causes a decrease in the long run economic growth. The reason is that the volatiity of economic production causes uncertainty in production and then as a result of that a decreas in investment and long run economic growth.