Journal of Money and Economy

The ‘Subsidy Targeting Project’ was introduced by the government of Iran in 2010 to ease the impact of removing price subsidies (carried out as part of recent economic liberalization reforms). Under this scheme, regardless of their socio-economic characteristics, Iranian citizens residing in Iran receive the same amount of cash rebate (currently 455,000 Iranian Rials per month). This paper uses the equivalence scales approach to query the fairness of this policy exercise. We use Iran’s Household Expenditure and Income Surveys datasets for 1984-2007 (compiled annually by the Statistical Centre of Iran) to estimate the Engel-curve-based equivalence scales which take account of the main household features: size, geographic location, and a number of characteristics of head of household. Our estimates suggest a clear profile of redistribution which questions the fairness of disregarding households’ characteristics in such a large scale redistribution exercise which was primarily designed to offset the welfare impacts of removing price subsidies. JEL Classification: I30, I31, I32, I38

Monetary policy as a tool for expectations management is believed to be most effective if it can coordinate the beliefs and expectations of the economic agents. The optimal communication policy is in an environment where central bank announcements are common knowledge and abundant information is complete transparency. The above conclusion is altered in the more realistic situation where economic agents face uncertainty regarding underlying economic fundamentals combined with strategic complementarity between player’s actions. The optimal communication policy in a case with imperfect common knowledge is incomplete transparency or a degree of opacity. Uncertainty about the underlying economic state in the presence of strategic complementarity is the origin for the emergence of imperfect common knowledge. We further develop these issues in the context of a Lucas-island model. Full policy transparency in this setting leads to an economic distortion residing in a wedge between economic agent’s expectations and optimal fundamental-based allocations—dubbed as over-reaction to the central bank announcements. JEL Classifications: E50, E58, E59, G11, G12, G13, G14

The evidence of the recent years in the banking network of Iran indicates the increasing trend of nonperforming loans each year; thus, the main objective of the current study is to examine the impact of bank specific factors, esp. capital adequacy ratio on the NPLs. Six years dynamic panel data (2007-2012) of 19 banks are applied to scrutinize the relationship between capital adequacy ratio as well as other determinants and the NPLs. Applying correlation and regression analysis shows that the research model which has been utilized is of decent statistical qualification. Results emphasize that banks should control and amend their credit advancement policy with respect to factors influencing the NPLs to have lower non-performing loan ratio and should take into account their risk weighted assets and riskiness of their loan portfolio before they commence lending. In advance of lending to high risky projects and to low quality borrowers, banks should pay attention to the interests of both stakeholders and banks as well as they should consider the riskiness level of their loan portfolio to provide the accurate information relating to their performance because of the probability of high risk project failure which might evidently lead to the growth in NPLs. JEL Classification: C21, G23, G32

Several political and economic factors are involved in choosing exchange rate policy in Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries. In the present study, these factors have been investigated with an emphasis on OCA and political economic factors during 1990 -2014. The result shows that OCA and political economic factors as well as tradable sector are influential on exchange rate policy in OIC countries. In a way that oil revenue, financial development, GDP, openness of the economy, economic development and political instability all tend to increase the probability of pegging the exchange rate regimes, whereas an increasing industrial sector and size of the economy lead to a decrease in the probability of pegging the exchange rate regimes. Inflation, democracy, political system, legislative system, and monetary crises had no significant effect on the exchange rate regime. Also, the results show that the democracy and oil revenue had the highest impact on choosing exchange rate regime and financial development and monetary crises risk had the least impact on choosing exchange rate regime. JEL Classification: F31, C01

Reliable measures of the size and direction of changes in monetary policy are very crucial for examining the effects of monetary policy on the economy. Monetary Condition Index (MCI) can be used as a tool to assess the stance of monetary policy. This index is defined as the weighted average of different monetary transmission mechanism relative to their values in a base period. The weights in MCI are the relative importance of each channel in transmitting monetary shocks in the economy. In this paper we construct a new MCI for Iran that characterizes three key innovations. First, for estimation of MCI’s weights, we employ system of equations (VARX) in order to solve the problem of exogeneity arising from single equation method. Second, beside exchange rate and credit channel, it includes asset price channel. Third, we utilize a quarterly data set which seems more plausible for studying short-run dynamics regarding the monetary policy. Our estimated index over the 1991Q2-2014Q1 indicates that in more than 74% of quarters under consideration, monetary condition in Iran is easing relative to the base period (2004:2). The empirical results show MCI leads roughly 1 quarter ahead of inflation. Therefore, this index can be used as the leading indicator of the inflation rate. JEL Classification: E51; E52; E58; C53

This paper presents a framework for assessing the fiscal condition index (FCI) and develops a concept to assess fiscal condition of governments and implements it into Iran government as an oil exporting country. The concept consists of four dimensions -revenue, expenditure, budget balance, and debt structure-and each dimension has its own indicators. There are seven indicators examined namely expenditure to GDP ratio, non-oil revenue to total revenue ratio, public debt to GDP ratio, non-oil balance to non-oil GDP ratio, oil revenue to total revenue ratio, capital expenditure to total expenditure ratio , and overall budget balance to GDP ratio. Assessing cycle of fiscal indicators shows that these indicators have been pro-cyclical individually. Then, fiscal policy not only doesn’t have stabilizing role in macroeconomic conditions, but also increases the macroeconomic fluctuations. Likewise, the results indicate that Iran’s fiscal condition index is very volatile and pro-cyclical. Also, assessing this index demonstrate that Iran’s government has experienced fiscal health in 2003, 2006, and 2008. However, it has been in fiscal stress in 2012 and 2013. Iran’s governments did not have fiscal policy discipline in the period 1990-2011. This is because the oil price is the leading indicator of fiscal condition index. In addition, sanction is one of the reasons that caused decrease of FCI in 2010-2012. JEL Classifications: H70, H61, H63, H20