سید حسین میرجلیلی

Industrial investment in Iran, especially in the wake of sanctions’ intensification in the 2010s, decreased significantly. The government implemented fiscal policy which has been associated with uncertainty. In this paper, using a dynamic panel model and generalized method of moments, we examined the effect of fiscal policy uncertainty on investment in 24 industrial groups in Iran over the period 2002-2020. The results indicated that the growth of fiscal level shock,resulted in a low but positive effect on investment directly. However,the coefficient of cross effect between the growth of fiscal level shock and the fiscal policy uncertainty undermined the positive effect on industrial investment. The government has had two effects on industrial investment indirectly through the demand side shock. By creating demand, it has had a positive effect on industrial investment with the cross effect between the growth of the fiscal level shock and industrial sales. However, on the other hand, the growth of the fiscal level shock has been associated with the creation and growth of fiscal policy uncertainty, so that the cross effect between the growth of fiscal policy uncertainty and the growth of industrial sales on industrial investment shows a high negative coefficient. The results of these two effects suggest that due to high uncertainty,the indirect government effect on investment in 24 industrial groups is negative, which happens through the demand-side shock. Moreover, the growth of fiscal policy uncertainty, sanctions, and interest rates, respectively, have had the most adverse effect on investment in 24 industrial groups in Iran.

This paper examines the gap between marginal cost and the price of 22 manufacturing industries in Iran at ISIC 2-digit level and 32 industries at a 3-digit level during 1995-2015 compared to selected countries. It examines the gap by using the Hall-Roeger model. We found that in garments, basic chemicals, non-metallic mining, and refined petroleum products, the price and marginal cost difference are high and in tobacco industries are low. In 3 out of 22 industries at ISIC 2- digit level and in 11 out of 32 industries at 3-digit level, Iranian industries have higher markups and a significant gap between price and marginal cost than Japan, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. Also from 32 industries in ISIC 3-digit level and 22 industries in 2-digit level, Iran has the lowest mark-up in the tobacco industry with 1.03 and in chemical products with 2,33, has the highest markup. JEL Classification:   , ,