Journal of Economic Modeling Research

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Municipalities are kind of organizations that due to their diversity in functions and obligations play important roles in urban management .Financing the administration of obligations (urban public finance) is one of the principal tools in achieving targets and urban-related plans. With a glance at the structure of current revenue sources of this administration, it can be found that there is a considerable dependence on the revenue from building permits. This has inappropriate consequences for the economy of cities. Hence, providing an appropriate model that in addition to the quality of being operational and administrative has also the suitable properties can help both the local managements and city economies. To finance municipalities, specific criteria have been offered. In this study, in addition to classifying and grading the presented criteria, the current sources (revenue items) have also been graded, using multi-criteria decision making. And also the pattern of minimum expenditures supply has been modeled. The analysis of urban public finance in Isfahan and generally in Tehran shows that despite having the proper potentials in acquiring some revenues the urban management system relies heavily on building permit. In metropolitan areas, up to 50% of expenditure is obtained from building permit. This is not an appropriate financial strategy. Finally, we suggest that municipality should finance all of its expenditures through tax on pollution and fuel, consumption tax and property tax.

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The ability of OLG models in analyzing and simulating the various fields of an economy, such as the investigation of endogenous growth policies, the development of intergenerational equity criteria and the reform of social security system, has caused these models to have a special position among economists in recent decades. However, difficulties in quantifying these models and analyzing their stability properties have led them to remain only theoretical and receiving less attention from empirical viewpoints. This paper uses the proposed method by Auerbach and Kotlikoff to estimate a 55-period overlapping generations model. Then due to failures of the Iran’s Pension System, it analyses and simulates Pension System within overlapping generation’s model with heterogeneous agents living in 55 periods. Thus we study the effects of transition from the Pay-As-You-Go Pension to the Fully Funded Pension System in the process of capital accumulation, national production and national consumption. The findings indicate that the individual optimal consumption-saving behavior varies under different social security systems. The results of the simulation model show that in addition to increasing the personal financial assets, Fully Funded Pension System provides a higher physical capital accumulation for the economy than that of ‌Pay-as-you-go Pension System. In addition to higher levels of national consumption and production, the transition to the new system causes people to have more incentive to stay in the labor market and to complete their career because they have higher labor income than the old pension system.

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One of the important targets of the economic planning is economic growth via enhancement of the labor productivity. In this regard, education expenditures play a crucial role. This study aims at investigating the effect of education expenditures on the level of human capital and economic growth through a computable general equilibrium approach. The data on economic variables and social accounting matrix belongs to the year 2001. Three scenarios on education expenditures are defined and their effect on human capital and economic growth are estimated. The results show that education expenditures have positive effects on economic growth and human capital. A 50% increase in education expenditures in the first period causes 3.81 and 5.8 percent increase in human capital and economic growth respectively. In the second period, the same increase in education expenditures affects human capital and economic growth positively by 5.4 and 7.3 percent respectively. Although separating the economic growth into human and physical factors in the first period shows that there is no relationship between human capital and economic growth, but in second period this separation causes a relationship between the two factors.

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The effect of equivalence scale on poverty line has been considered as a predetermined parameter in all previous studies about the estimation of poverty lines in Iran. As household’s members can benefit from economies of scale in consumption, the cost of reaching to a given level of welfare does not increase one to one in household scale. So the effect of household scale on poverty line as a predetermined parameter creates bias. The main purpose of this study is to estimate the poverty line regarding the household scale. The utility function and the indirect household expenditures under consumption behavior approach are estimated based on income-expenditure data for 204464 Iranian urban households during2001-2007. Then poverty lines (in nominal and real units) per household scale (1to 10 members) are calculated based on indirect household expenditures.

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  Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) models using the capacities of private sector have provided a background to supply public services and infrastructures in different ways. Transportation sector as a fundamental sector of economic development in Iran needs public-private participation models. For this purpose a theoretical literature of public-private partnerships has been reviewed and then the barriers to the development of such partnerships in transportation sector of Iran economic, infrastructure, legal and social areas were investigated. Finally with AHP, TOPSIS and SAW methods of Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM)the barriers were prioritized and their relative importance was analyzed. The results of three methods indicate that factor of financial markets limitations and availability of financing is the main barrier to the development of public-private partnerships. Although there is a little different among the results of TOPSIS in rating some final factors compared to other two methods, by calculating rank correlation coefficient (Spearman) the null hypothesis(the lack of correlation between the results) was rejected and with 99.75 percent probability all of the result are similar. Ranking results of barriers to the development of public-private partner ships in this study can be taken into consideration in policymaking and determining the requirement to use these models in the fields of transportation and other infrastructural areas.

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  The allocation of opportunities affects income distribution and income inequality. This paper analyzes the economic impacts of initial allocation of resources and redistribution of opportunities. In this study, we apply a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model focusing on distribution of opportunities and allocation of available resources. The differences between households' income are caused by differences in labor income (skilled and unskilled) and the household's income from capital stock. The model is calibrated based on micro consistent matrix (MCM) of Iranian economy. We found that, the redistribution of opportunities and re-allocation of resources can reduce inequality. In other words, improvement in equality of opportunities leads to more equal society. The important finding of the study is that an increase in inequality of opportunity may cause the income gap grows faster. So, big reduction in inequality of income after small reduction in inequality of opportunities can be witnessed.

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  D’Alessandro’s (2010) model investigates the impact of total government spending on private consumption but according to Barro’s (1981) suggestion, the impact of two groups of government spending on private consumption can be studied separately. The fist group produces utility affecting services for household and the second group is as an input in the private production process. So in the present article, we use d’Alessandro’s (2010) framework -after some changes in household utility function and the production function- for estimating the separate effects of two groups of government spending on private consumption.

  In the next step, the data for Iran (1959-2007) is considered and the estimation results show that the first group of government spending for household consumption in short run is Edgeworth complement and in long run is Edgeworth independent. While government spending in case of the second group has a positive relationship with household consumption both in long run and short run. Thus, this paper proposes particular attention to changes in the composition of government spending in favor of government consumption spending as an input (second group) rather than expenses affecting the utility of households.

 

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  Parties and candidates in the election campaign try to raise the community to vote for them by offering a variety of social policies. However, the public health expenditures have been raised among the candidates as one of the most important tools to attract votes. Thus, this study uses panel data to investigate whether the components of electoral cycle have affected the growth of public health expenditures in both developed and developing countries over the period of 1994-2010. Using the related tests, two methods of static panel (random effects) and dynamic panel estimation were selected. According to the results, the presence of electoral cycles could not be rejected in both types of countries. Based on these results, politicians in every country increase the public health expenditures before the election in hopes of gaining a greater share of people's votes.

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Providing, maintaining and improving health of infants as a vulnerable group has a special place in health care. Due to the importance of this index in the United Nations development indices, we compared the socioeconomic determinants of infant mortality rate in Iran and MENA countries during 1980- 2010. The aims of this comparison was to determine major causes of inequalities in infant mortality rate in the region and also to determine why this index is very high and very low in different countries..

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Efficiency analysis plays an important role in price regulation in the electricity distribution sector. This paper analyses efficiency and productivity of 38 electric distribution companies in Iran from year 1387 to 1389 (Iranian calendar year) by using slack based model (SBM). Super efficiency analysis is employed to rank full efficient companies. According to results, Tabriz, Ahwaz and north Khorasan companies have best performance among others. To examine importance of losses inclusion as input on super efficiency scores, statistical tests are utilized. Results indicate significant difference in super efficiency scores with and without accounting for losses. Average productivity index of total companies has declined by 4 percent under investigated period. Further, Panel data analysis applied to specify determinants of super efficiency of electricity distribution companies. According to results, Loss rate, network density and transformer load factor are the main determinants of super efficiency.

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Social and economic impact of change in the subsidies payment policy have been concern in past recent years. In this paper, a Computable General Equilibrium model is used to analyze the impact of change in subsidies payment system from indirect to direct state, on the price and quantity variables of domestic production and employment level economic sectors in two scenarios. The basic data are used in the framework of SAM year 2001. CGE model establishes the relations between accounts of SAM into a set of simultaneous nonlinear equations, by using the modern general equilibrium theory. In first scenario, indirect subsidy of manufacturing and services sectors is remove and its full payment in cash to the urban and rural households. In second scenarios, indirect subsidy of manufacturing and services sectors is remove and its direct payment to the proportions of 50. 30 and 20 percent to the households, economic sectors and Government respectively. The results show that by change in subsidy payment, composition of production and employment in economic sectors are change. The greatest decrease in domestic production and employment level and also the highest increase in the prices level is observed in the transport products. The mining sector is only sector that is face with positive production growth rate in both scenarios, and for most sector, a decline is forecast. But GDP level is face with decline to equal 2.78 percent respectively in first scenario and 3.05 percent in second scenario. In the end, with comparing two scenarios show that more the direct subsidies paid to households increase, more the domestic production of  some sector growth.

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Cigarette and tobacco products in the VAT Law is considered as one of the particular goods and in order to contorlingit’s consumption by price tools, higher tax rates than the standard rate will be levied on it. In this paper, forecasting of revenues of this tax using an approach based on the estimating of tax base has been considered. Thus the first stage, tax base (consumption expenditure) is forecasted for the period 2012 to 2015 and then tax related years by applying the tax rates, will be calculated. In this regard, Because of concerns that policy makers have access to accurate predictions of tax revenues, Supervised neural networks Method to prediction and back-propagation algorithm to train is used. The results indicate that the average annual growth of revenue from value added tax on Cigarette consumption will have 20 percent during the forecasting years.

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The main objective of this study is: investigate the effect of government size on inflation rate in the 34 countries of the developing countries during the years 1998 to 2013. For this purpose, the index of total government spending as a percentage of GDP, used as government size and then the model of this study has been estimated by using the panel data technique.
The results of this study imply that the government size has had significant negative effect on the inflation rate and also the variables: liquidity growth rate, growth rate of import price and interest rate have had positive effect on the inflation. Furthermore, the growth rate of GDP, with a difference of degree has significant negative effect on inflation. Hence, the most important result of this study is the majority of the general government- spending in Developing countries has led to the Construction costs and investment in infrastructures that has strengthened. The supply side of the economy of these Countries that The origin of this effect can be the retarded economic structures of these countries.

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One of the main issues and challenges of managing health care system in Iran, is the issue of inequities in access to health services. Theoretical studies and empirical evidences indicate that implementation of the referral system and family physician plan is one of the main strategies to overcome inequity in the health and appropriate using of scarce resources in this area. But for successful execution of the family physician, it is necessary to identify important determinants affecting the decisions of participants in this plan using scientific methods and studying, and health policy makers should design a program pack that matches preferences of the target population to increase the possibility of its successful implementation. This study used Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE) to identify important determinants affecting the decisions of physicians.
Results show that increase in net payments to general practitioners, nearer workplace to residence, allocation of quota to get the degree of expertise, existence of housing facilities and deadheading pay, less covered population and paying to physicians in less period of time may increase the utility and satisfaction of physicians and therefore, possibility of their participation and entry to the plan, as expected.
According to the results, the attribute "place of work" are significantly more important than the other attributes.

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In recent years, with increasing of international sanctions and oil revenues falling in Iran, more attention has paid to public spending and taxes as a source of government financing. In this regard, numerous studies have focused on the issue of taxation and its role in economic development. However, the most studies in Iran analyses the role of taxes on macroeconomic variables such as economic growth, inflation and income inequality, and there is no research in the row of the changes in tax income over the business cycle. In this study, using the dynamic least squares method, short and long-run elasticity of tax bases in Iran in response to changes in GDP over the period 1973-2014 is calculated. The results shows that in the long run, the elasticity of income and corporate tax are statistically greater than one and for other tax bases are not significantly different from the unit. In the short run, elasticity of corporate tax is different from unit and other tax bases were not significantly different than unity. According to these results, it is suggested that the Iranian government should have less focusing on income and corporate tax during the recession period

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Forecasting tax revenues is vitally important issue for optimal allocation of taxable resources, planning and budgeting in national and regional levels and knowing the potential national participation in public expenditures.  The classical optimization based on mathematical methods may not be reliable in real world and mostly inefficient and inapplicable in complicated world due to their restricted assumptions. The smart optimization may help us to find the solution. This essay based on modified  PSO  methodology .The initial trial based on the data during 1971- 2007 in case of various direct and indirect taxes , and  using updated data  during 2008- 2012 for final forecasting , to estimate tax revenues for upcoming next three years (2013 up to 2016) by MATLAB software.

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Construction projects are the basic requirements of sustainable development and growth. Inefficient procedures of implementing the construction projects, regardless of our financial and administrative capacities, has imposed a large amount of unfinished and occasionally stopped projects to national economy. Since there are various components that affect the fate of projects, therefore, the main purpose of this paper is to answer this question that whether the political cycles affect the adoption and implementation of provincial construction projects or not? In order to answer this question, two hypotheses are considered in this paper. Therefore, GMM dynamic method was used to estimate the model and test hypothesis in the years 1997-2014. Hypothesis one: political cycles affect the fate of construction projects, and the second hypothesis: the impact of political cycles on the adoption and implementation of construction projects are larger in the year prior to political cycle (election). Therefore, in order to estimate the model and test the research hypothesis, provincial data during the years was used. Results of testing two hypotheses suggest that parliamentary and presidential political cycles have a significant positive correlation with the construction projects. Results also show that the presidential political cycle has a larger impact on construction projects, meaning that the impact of political cycles on the process of adopting and implementing the construction projects in the year prior to the political cycle is larger. In this regard, in order to eliminate the impacts of the governmental and parliamentary political cycle on construction projects, it is recommended to determine a competent authority that has the necessary qualifications as well as the sufficient degree of independence and supervision power over the project's Feasibility studies. The referenced mentioned will be approve projects based on objective justification-technical and district-based studies and it prevents the adoption of development plans based on the political considerations of the government and parliamentarians.

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