Panel Data

In this research, the demand function of drinkable  water in Qazvin Province was estimated using dynamic and static methods. The required data were collected from the data of the provinces of Qazvin in the time period (1996-2016) and collected by referring to the statistical system of Statistics Center of Iran and the provincial planning and budget organization of Qazvin Province. The explanatory variables used in the model include household income, temperature (minimum and maximum), urban population, water price, rainfall, number of subscribers. The method used to estimate the static model, generalized least squares, and in the dynamic model, is a two-step generalized moment method. The results showed that the water price coefficient in the static and dynamic model is -0.217 and -0.19, respectively, which is a negative sign of the correctness of the demand law and less than one indicative of the low elasticity of water. The variable coefficient of household income in the static and dynamic model was 0.2 and 0.15, respectively, which positive and less than one, respectively, indicating the normality and necessity of water in the drinkable sector. In relation to the price of other goods, the coefficient was estimated in both negative models were -0.72 and -0.9, respectively, which indicates that water is a complementary product. Finally, the value of the variable coefficient was 0.5, which indicates that the demand for water is 0.5 times the demand for water last year.

Banks play an important role in the Iranian economy which has a bank-based financial system. We examined the impact of exchange rate volatility as a determinant of banks' performance. In recent years, the exchange rate has been volatile in the Iranian economy and have an adverse effect on banks' performance. This study, investigate the issue for the period 2007-2017 for 14 Iranian banks. Exchange rate fluctuations are derived by GARCH method and the effect of its fluctuations on bank performance examined using panel data method. In order to evaluate banks' performance, we used two criteria, namely liquidity and profitability. Estimation of econometric model using panel data by random effects indicated that exchange rate volatility has a negative and statistically significant effect on banks' capital return ratio. Exchange rate volatility is also a determinant in increasing the ratio of lending to total bank deposits, as it increases the financial gap and creates the credit risk that the gap entails. JEL: N10, G01, E44, C22.

 International trade causes that markets to become more competitive and small-medium sized enterprises (SMEs) learn to compete effectively within this increasingly competitive global market place. SMEs are able to take advantage of increased opportunities in domestic markets that follow from international trade. It is indeed a way for internationalization of SMEs. This paper analyzes income and price elasticities of the export model which has been specified for export market of SMEs€™ in the selected Asian countries. The estimated elasticities revealed the responsiveness of exporting goods supplied by the SMEs in these countries with respect to changes in different incomes and relative export price. Accordingly, we estimate an export regression model (including demand and supply equations) based on the cross-sectional observations of the selected Asian countries including China, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, the Philippines, Vietnam and Pakistan over the period 1990-2008. We have found that price and income elasticities are statistically significant and have the expected signs. The implication of our findings is that price and income are appropriate determinants for international trade expanded by Asian SMEs.       JEL Classification: C23, F14, O47, P42  

 The importance of community's health followed by the consideration of endogenous growth models has led to an increase in health expenditure of countries to speed up economic growth and development. This has made the efficiency of health production function to an essential issue especially in developing countries. Based upon this, the present study with employing the stochastic frontier analysis method looks for identifying the main determinants such as economic ( children immunization and age dependency ratio ) , environmental ( the rule of law ) and social ( globalization ) conditions on technical inefficiency of health production function between member countries of Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in the period of 1998-2007. The empirical results show increasing the efficiency of health production through improvement in economic and environmental condition. But the increase in socialization globalization such as social factor has led to a decrease in technical efficiency that may be due to the lack of appropriate culture of using new technologies and modern social relations affected by the process of globalization in such countries.       JEL Classification: C12 C23 I12 I19    

This study aimed to evaluate the effects of environmental policies including price and non-price policies on natural gas demand in Iranian industrial sector. For this purpose, considering the dynamic nature of our panel data, we adopted Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) method to estimate natural gas consumption for 22 Iranian industries from 2005 to 2015. The results illustrated that the annual average of natural gas consumption has been rising, reaching five times higher than the consumption of other fossil fuels. Among the industries, other non-metallic minerals industry with 8 percent of the total production and more than 25 percent natural gas consumption have been regarded as the most natural gas consumer industry. The results of our GMM model showed that non-price environmental policies are more effective than the price policies on natural gas consumption. Overall, in non-price policies, energy intensity seems more important comparing to CO2 emission reduction. We recommend that governmental energy policies should focus more on energy intensity improvement in Iranian industries through technological enhancement and fuel energy saving regulations.

Financial statements of nineteen mature banks have been patronized to examine the impact of macroeconomic indicators and bank-specific determinants on the NPLs ratio through Quantile and Panel Data regression approaches. The impact of macroeconomic indicators on credit risk is statistically estimated for banking network via two directions. First, different quantiles are econometrically calculated, assessed and compared during 2007-12. Second, the Panel Data estimation is utilized in the same way to verify the outcomes of quanitle regression and to check the robustness. Results indicate that the impact of real money supply on the banks’ NPLs in 25%, 50%, and 75% of data is positive and significant in line with empirical evidence. The coefficients of the other variables (including the ratio of individual banks’ performing loans to total deposits, individual banks’ performing loans to total loans ratio, as well as GDP would be positively significant as well. The real interest rate has negatively-significantly driven NPLs. The banks’ NPLs are generally exacerbated by the impact of higher real money supply over the long run, real interest rate in the money market and upper return in the assets market mainly because of the negative-inflationary transmission effect. JEL Classifications: C16, C23, E51, G21

In the present study, the effect of concluding and executing monetary treaties as well as membership of regional economic cooperation organizations (as a potential for using regional currency) on mutual exports between Iran and its 50 major trading partners during the period of 2000 to 2016 is investigated. The Generalized Commercial Gravity Model and Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression of panel data with fixed effects are used. Countries' exports to each other are considered as dependent variables, and economic weight (log ratio of countries' GDP based on the purchasing power parity to each other), geographic distance between countries, real effective exchange rate and the degree of openness of the economy are independent explanatory variables. In addition, monetary treaties and the membership of the countries in the Asian Clearing Union, in the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) and in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) are considered as dummy variables. The results show a positive and significant relationship between monetary treaties and the volume of exports of countries to each other. Also, the coefficients of dummy variables are significant and negative, indicating the lack of potential for the use of regional common currency among 51 countries over the considered period.

A bank as a business units needs to have liquid assets which can be easily converted into cash at short notice. Thus the concept of liquidity risk management is important for any commercial banks. The impact of liquidity position in management of banks have remained significant, though very elusive in the process of investment analysis vis-à-vis bank portfolio management. In addition, liquidity risk management affects banking performance. In this paper, according to existing theoretical and empirical literature, the suitable system for measuring liquidity risk management is defined. Then, the effect of liquidity risk management on the profitability and survival of banks has been investigated. For this purpose, a model is estimated using panel data method and the financial statements of banks for the period 2005-2017. The results of the study show that there is a significant relationship between risk management and profitability and bank survivability. As poor liquidity risk management reduces the profitability and survival of banks.

Privatization which refers to the transition of ownership and management of state-owned enterprises to the private sector, is one of the main drivers of economic prosperity. In this paper, the performance of the state, private, and privatized banks have been compared through examining the effects of privatization in the banking system on its performance. The data from 11 banks during the 13-years period (2005-2017) has been used in this research. Due to the time of major privatization (2009) and the imposition of restrictions on the banking system in the form of sanctions, two dummy variables are used to distinguish their effects. To this purpose, panel regression, parametric and non-parametric tests have been used that have all the same results. The results of panel regression model which is used to examine the effects of privatization on the profitability of the entire banking system showed that privatization has had a positive and significant effect on the performance of banks in terms of profitability. In the first step, parametric and non-parametric tests have been used with the aim of comparing the performance of privatized banks with that of private and state banks in the period before and after privatization; then, these tests were used with the aim of comparing the performance of privatized banks in the period before and after the privatization. The results showed that there were significant differences in these two periods. In the third step, the performance of privatized banks in the period before and after privatization with state and private banks were compared. The results showed that the performance of privatized banks was only improved compared with state banks and was almost the same as private banks.

Iran's banking industry has faced a wide range of changes during recent years and its banks' performance has been affected by these changes. On the one hand, the entry of private banks to the industry has made various changes in the industry's concentration and the market share of banks, on the other hand, banking technologies and strengthened competitive environment have led banks to increase efficiency and improve their performance. Given the importance of competition and efficiency in different components of the economy, the present study aims to investigate the competitiveness of private banks over the period 2005 to 2017. For this purpose, according to Panzar-Rosse model in the framework of panel data models, required data are collected from all private banks, then the competitiveness of private banks is calculated using the Panzar-Rosse model. According to the results, markets of Iran’s private banks are involved in monopolistic competition during the underlying time period.

The merger of banks is one of the methods for reforming the structure of banks, which has attracted Iranian banking policymakers in recent years. In the process of merging, paying attention to its effects can help to integrate banks. In Iran's banking network, financing of production is one of the main concerns of banking policymakers. Therefore, it is important to study the effect of banks' integration on financing. In this paper, considering the importance of this issue, using the financial statements of banks in the period 2006-2018, and the Panel Data method, the effect of the merger of banks on financing has been investigated. The static method has been used to integrate banks. For this reason, banks have been considered in terms of size and health. The results of the survey indicate that the combination of small banks with large bank and combination of healthy banks, as compared to other options, have more positive effect on the supply of facilities.

It is generally accepted that COVID-19 is one of the most serious challenges the countries have faced since the end of World War II. The coronavirus, as an external shock has reshaped economic structures and lowered integration among countries. The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the impacts of COVID-19 on the globalization level of countries, which were classified into five Asian regions based on the United Nations geoscheme. To this end, an econometric method of estimation is employed based on the quarterly data pertaining to the study’s variables from 2010 to 2020. Results indicate that the pandemic has had a more severe negative impact on the globalization level of more developed countries in Asia, whereas it has had a smaller negative impact on less developed regions, such as those located in Central Asia. In this regard, Japan and China can be named as two economies in which the Coronavirus has had a greater negative impact on the level of globalization. It can be highlighted that the pandemic and its related consequences, such as protectionism (trade and capital de-liberalism) and travel restrictions are not considered as potential threats for all Asian countries. What constitutes a threat for various countries depends on the country’s economic nature, political stability, economic size, and globalization nature. Therefore, for globalization recovery, no unique pattern could be applied to all Asian countries, each having to determine useful practical policies based on its  economic mechanism and interactions with respect to both regional and global variables.