International Journal of Business and Development Studies

Sustainability consists of fulfilling the needs of current generations without compromising the needs of future generations, while ensuring a balance between economic growth, environmental care and social well-being. Sustainability includes three environmental, economic and social dimensions; whose environmental dimension has a decisive weight in sustainability. Many empirical sustainability-related researches have been carried out in the 2000s and 2010s, and the empirical model used in these studies was based on the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC). Also, the two concepts of human development and sustainability have been widely used in development literature in the past years, and humans have been considered as an important factor in the development of different societies in various studies. Composite index of human development includes various dimensions that can affect sustainability and especially environmental sustainability. Also, the influence of large oil revenues in the oil-owning and exporting countries on human development in these countries has played a prominent role, and has categorized the countries into three groups: oil-producing countries with high human development, oil-producing countries with medium human development, and oil-producing countries with low human development. This study has used the panel data method and the Kuznets function in the period of 2010-2019 to investigate the effect of the human development index in 35 major oil exporting countries in the world. According to the result of model estimation by econometric method, environmental sustainability in these countries increases with the increase in the human development index (HDI).

The present study aimed to investigate the effect of financial fragility on macroeconomic variables within a TVP-VAR model. For this purpose, first the financial fragility variable was calculated. Then, this study evaluated the effect of this variable on macroeconomic variables including economic growth rate, inflation rate, and exchange rate. In this study, the quarterly data for the period 2001-2020 were used. The results indicated that financial fragility had a negative effect on economic growth but a positive effect on exchange rate and inflation by creating uncertainty in the economy. In other words, financial fragility in Iran increased economic fluctuations by reducing economic growth and increasing inflation and exchange rates.

Economists and policymakers are interested in how government spending affects economic performance. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of government capital expenditures by component on the GDP of Iran's provinces between 2011 and 2019 using a Bayesian approach. To do so, after estimating over 500,000 regressions and averaging the Bayesian model's coefficients, the five sub-categories of industry, judiciary, energy, health and information and communications technology were identified as the most effective sub-categories of government capital expenditures on provincial GDP. Then, a hierarchical Bayesian panel model was specified and estimated to determine the extent to which and how each of these subsections affects the provinces' GDP. Monte Carlo simulations using Markov chains indicate that while judicial and health expenditures reduced production during the study period, expenditures on industry, energy, information and communications technology increased production in Iran's provinces.

Risk and uncertainty are inherent characteristics of economic activities. This study aimed to investigate how fluctuations in macroeconomic variables affected the economic growth of Iran, in the period 1989-2021. To this end, fluctuations in macroeconomic variables were measured using EGARCH method, and then Iran’s economic growth equation was estimated based on the Markov Regime-Switching GARCH. The MRS(2)-AR(2) model was estimated. The model estimation results revealed two regimes of prosperity and recession in Iran's economy, the latter was more durable than the former in the studied period. The different effects of OPEC oil price fluctuations in the two regimes, indicating the asymmetric effects of this variable on Iran's economic growth. In other words, the effects of this uncertainty on Iran’s economic growth are smaller during a period of recession than a period of prosperity. The results on real exchange rate fluctuations showed that fluctuations in this variable had similar destructive effects on Iran’s economic growth. The results revealed the positive and negative effects of inflation rate fluctuations on Iran’s economic growth during periods of recession and prosperity, respectively. The IQI coefficient showed the positive effects of this variable on Iran’s economic growth; higher institutional quality increases physical capital and, thereby, economic growth. Based on the model estimation results, it is impossible to propose a single solution to control fluctuations in macroeconomic variables in Iran during different periods. economic policymakers should adopt and implement the best policies considering the periods of recession or prosperity as well as the development priorities.

Monetary policy is one of the important economic policies that affect the macro variables of every country. One of the composite variables that are affected by the monetary policy is the FCI. This study aimed to measure the effect of monetary policy through different channels on the FCI of Iran. Using time series data from 1991-2023 and the econometric method of PCA, the FCI was first calculated. The effect of monetary policy on the FCI of the country using the Markov-switching (MSIHA(2) AR(2)) model was calculated and estimated. The results of the estimation of the Markov-switching model indicate that the studied period can be divided into two regimes of zero and one. So that 1% increase in the FCI in regime zero will lead to a 0.02% return of the FCI in the next month and a 0.36% increase in the next two months. In addition, the increase in the FCI in regime one will lead to a 0.08% return of the FCI and a 0.10% increase in the next two months. In addition, the volume of money in regime zero and regime one also positively and significantly affects FCI.

The study aims to investigate and comparatively identify the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on fraudulent reporting motives in three emerging markets, namely Iran, Iraq, and Egypt. The present research method is a descriptive survey. The statistical population consists of independent auditors in three countries, and field methods and questionnaires have been used to collect data. The results indicate that COVID-19 pandemic affects management motives for committing fraud. They include respectively: sudden personal financial needs, need to receive financial resources for firm, pressure from owners in family companies, tax incentives, greed, government pressure in state-owned firms, concealing financial distress, avoidance of exclusion or deterioration in stock market, trust and self-esteem, tendency to increase compensation/payment of the management, pressure due to threats and compulsion, concealment of personal and illegal exploitation of assets, implementation or going beyond analysts’ forecasts, high levels of market competition, revenge, manager’s culture and values, management ideology or beliefs, and comparison of social status. This is the first study to investigate and compare the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on fraudulent reporting incentives in emerging markets. Further, this study was conducted in three countries of Iran, Iraq, and Egypt, which have different contextual conditions (political, economic, cultural, etc.), indicating the impact of environmental conditions on the effects of Covid outbreaks. It can help stakeholders, including legislators,  capital market regulators and auditors in other markets, especially emerging markets, to deal with the risk of fraudulent reporting during the COVID -19 and other similar crises.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between liquidity and asset price fluctuations in the Iranian financial market applying innovative methods of averaging. The findings are useful for policymakers because the surveys can be used in monetary policy decisions. The data used in this research are quarterly from March 2006 to April 2020. To this end, the statistics from the economic time-series database of the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran and other related sources have been used. Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) has successfully been used in the experimental growth literature as a way to overcome the sensitivity of the results to the characteristics of different models. The variables are the real liquidity as a dependent one and fluctuations in total stock price, total housing price, central bank assets, the government debt to banks, exchange rate, and the coin price are considered independent ones. In terms of the movable assets, the results show a positive and significant relationship between fluctuations in real total housing prices and liquidity and a negative relationship between Bahar-e Azadi Iranian Gold Coin fluctuation and liquidity. For immovable assets, the real net fluctuation of central bank assets and the government debt to banks have a positive relationship with liquidity. There is a negative relationship of real total stock price fluctuation and real exchange rate fluctuation with the liquidity.

The purpose of this study is to prioritize the economic activities in Yazd Province, Iran, with a sustainable development approach and an emphasis on the importance of water intensity in economic activities. Therefore, multiple criteria were used to prioritize the activities that cover the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. In the first stage, the SFLQ method was used to prepare an input-output table for Yazd Province. Then, the economic activities in the province were prioritized in terms of six criteria including the intensity of interdepartmental communication and value-added (economic dimension), job creation (social dimension) as well as energy intensity, water intensity and pollution (environmental dimension). Moreover, a combination of an input-output model and the TOPSIS method was applied. According to the results of this study, among the activities in the province, "transportation" proved to have the highest priority. It was also found that the ignorance of water use as an important criterion can lead to significantly different prioritization results.

Mobile banking is one of the modern banking channels that has developed in recent years, and its application has stood the test of recent time, proving to be quite advantageous to both banks and customers. However, although a noticeable number of people have refused to use it, this study, while being an affirmative one, attempts to identify trust factors (of people) in mobile banking and explain the key role of trust in making mobile banking widely acceptable. In this research, which is an applied-descriptive one, the required samples were selected through questionnaires and distributed randomly among people living in Tehran, Iran. Out of all 2350 questionnaires, 2087 formed the volume of research sample. To analyze the data and test the assumption, SPSS software was used; in addition, PLS software was used to measure Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Based on the results, compared to women, men had more trust in mobile banking. Further, certain factors, such as education level, field of study corresponding to Information Technology (IT) field, job and its characteristics, social influence, innovation, and knowledge, had positive effect on trust; on the contrary, factors such as age and risk perception had negative effect on trust .

According to the economic literature, foreign direct investment (FDI) has the main role in the growth of countries. Therefore, the main goal of present study is to examine the direct and indirect (spatial) effect of FDI on growth of GDP in different regions of Iran using the spatial econometric model. For this purpose, the data of 30 provinces of Iran during 2010-2018 has been used. The spatial weight matrix (W), is considered based on the contiguity of the regions. The results of model showed that FDI had a positive direct and spillover effects on growth of regions. Also, government spending in the regions, increase of financial credits and human capital had a direct positive effect on economic growth of the region's economy. The spillover effects of two variables, FDI and financial development, was significant. Meanwhile, the spatial (indirect) effect of FDI was positive, but the indirect (spillover) effect of financial development was negative.

The new structural economics approach to industrial policy is to follow a strategy of comparative advantage. According to this thinking, determining the relative prices of production factors by the market mechanism and providing the soft and hard infrastructure required by the government for industries that are compatible with the production factor’s structure, are the two determining factors of industrial development strategy. Considering that one of the key hypotheses of this approach is to increase economic growth as a result of comparative advantage following policy, this study has tried to test this hypothesis in the provinces of Iran in the period of 2005-2017 using the GMM. The findings of this study show that the hypothesis is confirmed at the level of Iranian provinces; Also, the change in the model estimation method did not change the research findings, so it is reliable. Therefore, it is recommended that policy makers consider the policy of following the comparative advantage of the region in designing the industrial development strategy.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of uncertainty in economic policy on the stock price crash risk. In this applied descriptive-analytical ex post facto study, the statistical population included the companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange. Over a seven-year period, 148 companies are selected using the systematic sampling method (2015–2021). In this study, the negative skewness of return on equity (ROE) and down-to-up volatility were used to assess the stock price crash risk (dependent variable) and uncertainty in economic policy (independent variable). The data was then analyzed using the multivariate regression model. The results of the hypothesis testing indicated that volatility in the interest rate, dollar exchange rate, inflation, and economic growth had a positive significant effect on the stock price crash risk or the negative skewness of ROE and down-to-up volatility. Hence, given the effects of macroeconomic variables on the ROE, in order to achieve economic sustainability, the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran should pay close attention to the adoption of macroeconomic policies, prevent economic policymakers and planners from implementing hasty unscientific policies, and increase the share of tax revenues from income sources.