Journal of Money and Economy

Daily price limits are adopted by many securities exchanges in countries such as the USA, Canada, Japan and various other countries in Europe and Asia, in order to increase the stability of the financial market. These limits confine the price of the financial asset during all trading stages of any trading day to a range, usually determined based on the previous day’s closing price. In this paper we study the portfolio optimization problem with impose the price limit constraint. The dynamic programming technique is applied to derive the Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman equation and the method of Lagrange multiplier is used to tackle the constraint. Optimization problem solution results, using numerical method show that the equilibrium path of wealth and investment in risky assets has a different way than in the absence of price limits.

Due to its role in the identification of inefficient branches and deciding the consistency of their activities, evaluating the performance of a bank's branches is one of the most important decisions in the field of development and regulation of branch network. In this paper, the satisfactory functions based on game theory strategies have been utilized in order to evaluate the individual and within-group performance of the bank's branches. The proposed approach is based on a cooperative game theory, and the number of players is equal to the number of units which must be evaluated. The satisficing equilibrium set includes the options which are qualified as “good enough” or the efficient units which are both individually and within-group efficient. By applying our analytical method to the bank Mellat case study, we have presented solutions to improve the efficiency of inefficient branches and the branches which are only individually or within-group efficient using sensitivity analysis techniques. Lastly, if efficiency improvement is not possible, we have suggested omitting the branch.

One of the striking features of the business cycles is the patterns of co-movement of output, inflation, interest rates, and real equity prices across countries. This paper empirically examines the effects of domestic and foreign monetary policies on Iran's macroeconomic variables (including real production, inflation, short-term interest rate, and real exchange rate) using quarterly data over the 1996Q1-2015Q4 period and a global vector auto-regression model (GVAR) for Iran, the largest trading partners of Iran including China, India, Russia, South Korea, Turkey, the European Union, and the United State. The results of domestic monetary policies on Iran's macroeconomic variables illustrate a form of Price Puzzle on how monetary policy shocks affect inflation in Iran. The effects of the positive shocks of domestic interest rate on real GDP in Iran is negative. Iran's real exchange rate response to the positive shock of domestic interest rates is negative and significant. The results regarding the impact of the foreign monetary policies on Iran's macroeconomic variables illuminate that only the effects of a positive shock to China's interest rate are significant and negative on Iran's inflation. Besides, there is a significant independency of Iran's real GDP to the monetary policy shocks of the other trading partners of Iran. Also, the response of Iran's real exchange rate to positive monetary shocks in the EU and Turkey is at a positive and significant level. The results indicate that due to the closed economic structure of Iran, global economic crises that lead to a recession in other countries have had the least impact on the Iranian economy.

According to the Basel III regulatory framework, uniform minimum liquidity requirements have been imposed on all types of banks. Using an agent-based model of a banking system, we investigate the effects of liquidity requirements on banks' insolvency under two policy experiments in one of which the minimum liquidity requirements are applied uniformly and in the other differentially across banks. The model introduces a banking system with 12 heterogeneous banks that must also comply with two liquidity requirements while performing their daily activities of taking deposits and making loans. The model is applied to the Iranian banking system. Results illustrate that because banks respond differently to liquidity requirements, applying one size minimum liquidity requirements to all kinds of banks, strengthens the likelihood of a liquidity shock turns into banks' insolvency and could increase banking system instability. Thus our findings highlight that to achieve financial stability at the national level, policymakers should revise the current one size fits all approach when designing liquidity requirements.

This paper examines the necessity of regulating the Iranian card payments system (SHAPARAK) based on the theory of two-sided markets. The expansion of the payment card system in recent years has arisen some questions regarding the role of all kinds of costs and expenses such as interchange fees, cardholder fees, merchant fees, and network externality in balancing the market. Since there is only an interchange fee in Iran, regulation of the card payments system is necessary to assess the variables affecting this system. The data used in this study consist of 1218 observations of 29 banks from March 2016 to August 2019. The econometric method for this purpose is the fixed effects panel data model. The results indicate that the interchange fee has an essential role in balancing the Iranian card payment system market. Also, network externality makes the opportunity for balancing the market by decreasing the interchange fee and finally reducing transaction costs for acquirer banks. This policy can lower the interest rate of the bank loans because, in the Iranian card payment system, cardholders and merchants do not pay fees for transactions. So, banks try to attract clients for issuing cards and receive interchange fees as revenue to compensate for the payment network costs by the interest rate of loans. Overall, the results of the estimated model show that improving the card payments system in Iran should be regulated by related organizations.

Economic justice and equitable distribution of income, along with important issues such as economic growth and development, the reduction of inflation and unemployment, have always been of concern to economists. Fair distribution of income and reduction of income inequality in society, and the identification of factors affecting income inequality to make the right policy are necessary and obvious. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of income tax on income distribution in Iran. In this regard, Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach has been used to investigate the existence of a long-run relationship between variables and to estimate the coefficients related to long-run and error correction models for income inequality from 1978 to 2012. The results indicate a long-run relationship among the variables and show that an increase in income tax revenues leads to a reduction in income inequality.