Journal of Money and Economy

Accurate Measuring of poverty and its distribution in various areas, in addition to being crucial for cognitive purposes, could have different policy implications and affect policy assessments. The Household expenditures criteria is typically used to measure poverty, and poverty is often assessed using a poverty line and alternative indices. A major difficulty associated with this method is, however, that it fails to take the purchasing power of money in different areas into account. In fact, households with the same amount of expenditures living in areas with higher price levels enjoy lower levels of welfare in comparison with those living in areas with lower price levels. Since the consumer price index cannot reflect the difference between price levels in different areas, this index is not useful for evaluating differences in purchasing power. In this paper, we shall first present an index which reflects price levels in the Iranian year ending in March 2012, and then we shall test the equality of poverty measures hypothesis before and after adjusting expenditures with the proposed price level index using statistical tests and the dominance approach. According to the results, and regardless of the defined poverty line, adjusting expenditures based on all poverty measures characterized by a week monotonicity, will reduce the calculated poverty measures. Furthermore, after adjustment, the ranking of provinces with respect to poverty will drastically change. This could change the share of each province in reducing poverty budgets. JEL Classification: C40, E31, I32

This paper studies bank loans over the business cycles in Iran to determine the role of Iranian banks in stabilizing credit. By estimating the long-run relations using dynamic OLS and fully modified OLS estimators, the findings show that real bank lending is positively related to real GDP in the long-run providing evidences of the pro-cyclicality of bank lending in Iran. Hence, Iranian banking system has not operated far away from the conventional banking system in that they have not the ability to stabilize credit over business cycles. The results of Toda-Yamamoto’s (1995) Granger non-causality test indicate a unidirectional causality running from real GDP to real bank lending. Moreover, the impulse response functions from estimating vector autoregressive models suggest positive and statistically significant response of real bank lending to shocks from real GDP reaffirming the pro-cyclicality of bank lending in Iran. JEL Classification: C22, E32, G21

This study examines the effect of regulatory policy on efficiency under prudential framework among banks listed in the Iranian Securities and Exchange Organization over the period 2003 to 2015. Arellano-Bond estimation method has been patronized to investigate the effect of regulatory policies on efficiency. Results indicate that regulatory policy indicator indexing reserve requirement on investment deposits has had a positive relationship with the efficiency ratio, Sum of Assets Circulation Ratio (SACR), although it is not meaningful. On the other hand, the legal reserve ratio is positively and meaningfully affecting efficiency in financial institutions. Leverage ratio is negatively and meaningfully affecting the efficiency ratio (SACR) which highlights the point that as the financial institutions heighten their leverage ratio, it will lead to lower sum of asset circulation ratio as the best indicator of efficiency under activity proportions. Higher risk will lead to higher Financial Cost to Net Profit ratio (FCNP) interpreted as lower efficiency in financial institutes. Furthermore, regulatory policy denoted by the legal reserves ratio with one lag interval negatively-significantly influences the financial cost ratio. JEL Classification: C81, E43, E65, G21, G23

The analysis of macroeconomic variables for current situation in Iran indicates a Conundrum. Solving this puzzle is vital for Central Bank of Iran in order to choose an appropriate approach for monetary policy and banking supervision. Increase in liquidity growth rate, significant decrease of inflation rate and interest rate rigidity are the three sides of this puzzle. This study designs an innovative model for connecting the microeconomy of banks with macroeconomy, indicating a solution for mentioned puzzle. Accumulation of fictitious and frozen assets in the assets side of banking system balance sheet makes an unsound flow of liquidity which is partly impacted by fictitious assets of banking system and it is called unsound Liquidity. This situation shows the reality that is financially and economically unbalanced balance sheet of banking system and if these balance sheets seem balanced, is just because deployment of false accounting methods. In fact, quality of liquidity is impacted by reduction of the quality of banking system assets and despite high liquidity growth, this lead to reduction of inflation rate and also caused banks to resist against the reduction of interest rate. The adjusted long run equation of quantity theory of money has estimated in a vector error correction model (1996-2016). The results confirm the direct effect of quality of liquidity on inflation. JEL Classification: C32, E5, M4

Released information in stock markets plays an important role in making decisions by agents like brokers, investors and other market activists. Rational decision-making in these markets will be possible if relevant and significant information is being released on-time. Otherwise, transparency and equality in the market is compromised. This study aims to respond to the question of whether officially released information about major increase in Predicted Earnings per Share (PEPS) in Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) is significant and affects the growth of shares prices. For this purpose, we selected 30 official announcements of significant increases in PEPS for 30 companies from early 2012 to early 2015. This sample gathered from a set of over 2000 announcements. Findings of a Dynamic Panel Data model based on Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT) and Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimation method show that official release of information has no significant effect on shares prices. It means that the information maybe has affected the prices before its official publication, so, it is needed to prepare good conditions for information to be released on time and effectively in TSE. JEL Classification: C23, G14

We present estimates of the Elasticity of Intertemporal Substitution (EIS) for Iranian households using synthetic cohort panels based on household micro-data. Results show significant difference with the common values used in Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) models which are originally based on estimated values for developed countries. We show that this difference has important theoretical and practical implications. In a simple Real Business Cycle (RBC) setting using the estimated values rather than the common values will help explain 33% more of consumption volatility. We also study the role of EIS in the consumption response to a monetary shock in a Smets & Wouters (2003) model as a benchmark for New-Keynesian monetary models. Results indicate that the monetary policy shock has less impact on consumption in a country with lower elasticity of intertemporal substitution. JEL Classification: D91, E21