Journal of Economic Modeling Research

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Foreign exchange (FX) markets play a significant role in the global financial market, so that it comprises 40% of total global e-commerce values. However, reports show a 90% loss of entire investment of traders in this market usually after six to 12 months after entrance. This paper analyzes losing values of the majority of traders theoretically and empirically. Furthermore, by ignoring spread of broker and existence of inflation, it is shown that the FX market is a repeating zero-sum game. So, by developing a theoretical model in a framework of the Probability Theory, we have shown that probability of a loss in the FX market is quite high. Results show that the loss of the majority of trade occurs undoubtedly. Using two major currency pair data: Euro-Yen (EURJPY) and Euro-Dollar (EURUSD) in a daily duration in 2009 and 2010, we show that probability of failure (loss) cannot be less than 90%. We also showed the fact that, the larger number of transactions, the higher percentage of traders’ losses. The higher probability of loss also depends directly on the volatility of exchange rate and higher rates of spread and leverage.

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The Iranian electricity industry has been restructured following the global experiences. The main objective of restructuring is transition from natural monopoly towards competition in order to improve efficiency. Currently, the Iranian electricity market is performing as imperfect competition and Pay-as-Bid (PAB) auctions are the major trade mechanism in this market. This paper proves that Supply Function Equilibrium (SFE) is an appropriate approach to analyze behavior of the Iranian electricity market. Isfahan electricity market has been considered as a case study in which SFE is applied (regarding marginal cost estimation as well as demand uncertainty). The derived SFE indicates that there is major difference between SFE and Nash equilibrium.

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This paper tries to model the electricity demand in Iran’s industrial sector which captures economic factors and also non-economic exogenous factors. The structural time series model (STSM) approach is employed which allows using economic theory and time series flexibility. In this approach the role of UEDT (Underlying Energy Demand Trend) including technological improvement and structural changes is modeled, therefore the income and price elasticity are estimated more accurately. The results show that the UEDT has the stochastic nature. And UEDT has a great impact on industrial energy demand during 1975-2012. So, the electricity has not been used efficiently in this sector. In the short run the estimation of the income and price elasticity are 0.42 and 0.11 respectively. The value of the cross-price elasticity of electricity demand is estimated about 0.06. It shows that natural gas substitute electricity in industrial sector, however it is small.