Fiscal Policy Uncertainty

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.

In Iran, especially in the aftermath of economic sanctions of the 2010s, and the intensification of the government's budget deficit, since 2012, there was a diminishing investment, followed by a decrease in production which led to stagnation in the economy. The government plays its economic role by implementing fiscal policy. However, when it is associated with uncertainty, the effectiveness of fiscal policy may be undermined. Therefore, we need to measure the uncertainty of fiscal policy in Iran. We measured the uncertainty index of fiscal policy in Iran using a specified fiscal reaction function. In this function, there are two types of shocks. First, fiscal level shock and second, volatility shock which is a proxy for fiscal policy uncertainty. To this end, we employ particle-filter to estimate fiscal policy uncertainty in Iran. In this paper, by measuring the structural budget balance function for Iran, we utilize it as a dependent variable. The results indicate that the trend of balance or total budget deficit has a compliance with the trend of balance or structural budget deficit for Iran suggesting that the nature of government budget in Iran is a structural one, and in the 2010s the sanctions, adversely affected on the government budget. In 2012, the intensification of sanctions led to the increase in the uncertainty of fiscal policy until 2015 that the trend of fiscal policy uncertainty was mildly downward. In 2017, the uncertainty index of Iran's fiscal policy has increased rapidly until it reached its maximum in 2020, in which the economy did not face with such uncertainty for fiscal policy since 1979.