Sharif Digital Repository

In this research, we develop a Real Business Cycle model for Iran, as Small Open Economy. In this model, which is designed to measure the role of oil price shocks in Iran’s business cycles, the positive oil price shocks, as well as increasing the revenue of exporting oil, raises the price of oil-based tradable goods. Additionally, it causes the fiscal policy variables (taxes and government expenditures) to change. Also the productivity of this economy is fluctuated by oil price fluctuations. The model is estimated via Impulse Response Function Matching method using a SVAR model as the auxiliary model. The results from the theoretical model show that near 50 percent of non-oil GDP cycles and... 

Price stickiness which is measured by indicators like frequency and duration of price changes affects how monetary policy plays a role in economy. In fact, price stickiness determines how monetary policy affects economy’s real variables like output and unemployment. Hence, price stickiness is in favor of monetary policy since it provides the ability to improve real variables in the short term. Discovering the factors affecting price adjustment also allows the monetary policymaker to be able to predict changes in pricing behavior to some extent by monitoring the changes of these influential factors. This study seeks to answer several questions using 84 million monthly price observations of... 

In this research, I propose a macro-finance model with asymmetric information between firms and banks to investigate the capital misallocation effect of government interventions in financial markets of Iran’s economy, in terms of setting the price of “Transactional Loans”. In the presence of adverse selection, interest rate may be an instrument for screening lowproductive firms; however, the moral hazard problem of low productive firms with voluntary default, cancels out the filtering mechanism in high interest rates, if the cost of default for low-productive firms is low and judicial systems are poor in enforcing contracts. Hence, government repression/regulation policies do not affect the... 

The purpose of this research is compare some indicators of size, performance and productivity between exporter and non-exporter plants. For this purpose and, to answer questions of research we use from the industrial plants dataset (1382_1390). We obtain some stylized facts from the dataset then test evidence from data with econometric methods. In this dataset there are information about property, management, sales (domestic/foreign), inputs (domestic/foreign) and information about labor force, capital, investment of plant and many other variety information about plant. The results of my research show that always exporter in most measures of performance, size and productivity advantages... 

To answer how large the welfare gains from international trade are, this thesis uses two main ideas: linkages and complementarity. A problem along the production chain can sharply reduce output under complementarity. In such a circumstance, international trade and importing in the sectors which are the weak links of the production chain, help solve this problem. Using a general equilibrium model, it is shown that, the complementarity of the intermediate goods assumption results in much higher welfare gains from international trade compared to similar international trade models which assume the substitutability of the intermediate goods  

In this article we investigate the impact of trade openness on labor force participation rate. We use tariff rate as the main indicator of trade openness and we employ the number of regional trade agreements of neighbouring countries to diminish the endogeneity of the tariff rate variable. The results of the article show that the correlation of tariff rate and participation rate is negative and significant. Moreover, this correlation is robust controling for different variables and using various regression specifications. 1 percentage point decrease in tariff rate is correlated with 2-3 percentage point increase in participation rate and this relationship attenuates in the medium-run  

In this study, we aim to investigate the effects of energy price shocks on macroeconomic variables, particularly inflation. To achieve this goal, we have designed a Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model with nominal rigidities and financial frictions. In this model, households and firms are energy consumers, and the government is the sole supplier of energy, selling it to households, firms, and the external world without energy constraints. The energy price in this model differs between firms and households, and we analyze the almost persistent shocks to both of these prices. Within the framework of this model, we analyze the role of monetary policy in controlling the... 

Using a micro-based general equilibrium model with four sectors, I introduce a context to study the macroeconomic effects of energy subsidies. I calibrate the model using Iranian energy data, estimating elasticities of substitution and energy shares. Using this calibration, I compare the steady-state results of two compensation plans for energy price reform, tax cuts and cash transfer, explaining the active mechanisms in each scenario and investigating their impact on household welfare and production levels. I calculate that the steady-state energy price in Iran is 40% of regional prices, and we simulate the reform in which prices are increased from this price to regional prices. I conclude... 

The development of theoretical models in recent years emphasizes more and more the importance of intermediate goods in determining the welfare benefit of countries from international trade. In addition, due to the increase in computing power as well as the extent of international data, the experimental part has become an integral part of the research of this branch. In Ahmadi's thesis (1394), a multi-industry and multi-country general equilibrium model is presented by dividing the industries into two intermediate and consumption sectors based on the Caliendo and Parro (2014) model. In this model, a relationship has been obtained in terms of the basic parameters of the countries' industries,... 

We extend the work of Chari et al. (2007) to Iran’s economy institutions and introduce two additional wedges—the trade wedge and the oil wedge. The measured trade wedge value is regressed on nominal exchange rate, and thus we decompose the measured trade wedge into two components. One component represents the effect of nominal exchange rate on trade barriers and the other is representative of the effect of international sanctions in trade barriers. Then we evaluate the contribution of these two components of the trade wedge to the macroeconomic fluctuations in Iran from 2012 to 2014. Our results suggest that the trade wedge is crucial to account for the behavior of imported intermediate... 

In this thesis, I introduce a general equilibrium model of international trade that takes into account the industry linkages between intermediate goods and consumption goods producers to quantitatively measure the countries’ welfare gains and losses from different trade policies on intermediate and consumption goods. My model extends the inter-industry trade model of Ricardo (1817), intra-industry model of Krugman (1980), and firm heterogeneous model of Melitz (2003). Reduction of tariffs affect welfare of countries through direct effects on income, cost of export, and cost of input bundles of production (labor and intermediate goods), and indirectly through changes in term of trades, and... 

To understand the link between the capital misallocation and financial repression in less-developed economies, we put forward a dynamic theoretical macro-finance model with information asymmetry between firms and the bank. While there is no exogenous instrument for the bank to asses firms’ productivity, we let him update his belief about firms’ productivity, based on their records. We show in the presence of asymmetric information and weak formal contract enforcement systems, in the short-run, increasing the interest rate may increase capital misallocation since the moral hazard problem of strategically defaulting of firms can cancel out the screening mechanism of increasing the interest... 

Abstract In this study, by using panel instrumental variable quantile regression method (IVQP) and household budget data during the years 2011-2018, income elasticity of Housing energy has been estimated at different levels of energy expenditure. This method helps to study the whole energy expenditure distribution instead of focusing on the average effects. The study results show that income elasticity has a downward trend with increasing energy consumption quantiles. In other words, households with higher consumption have less income elasticity, so that the income elasticity is estimated for 10, 90 percentage, 0.47, and 0.32 quantiles, respectively. Also, in another part of the research,... 

We consider the impact of long-run uncertainty on relative GDP per Capita of an economy and show this effect is negative and significant. We show one standard deviation increase in uncertainty, decreases the economy’s GDP per Capita by 1.3%.In other words uncertainty affects the development of economies in addition to their growth rate. We show the significance of this effect in presence of human capital and physical capital. We consider the impact of uncertainty on relative productivity and show its significant negative impact. We consider the uncertainty impact on GDP per Capita’s time trend and show the effect diminishes over time.Additionally, we investigate the important channels of... 

In this study, we estimate the relationship between the quality of previous education, the quality of current program, the condition of first semester, and the socio-demographic characteristics of students with their performance in the program. We use graduation GPA of students as a measure of their performance. Using the administrative data of graduate students at Sharif Graduate School of Management and Economics from 2000 to 2012, we find that there is a positive correlation between the previous degree GPA and the first semester GPA with graduation GPA. Furthermore, in our sample the GPA of male students is on average lower than the GPA of female students. At last, we find that the... 

Related Lending is defined as banks making loans to firms with which they have some kind of ownership association. On one hand, this practice can help diminish asymmetric information between bank and firm which results in a more efficient allocation of bank’s resources. On the other hand, it may lead to the banks’ transferring resources to their related firms inefficiently, without meticulously assessing the risks involved. This paper is focused on the effect of the relationship between bank and firm in their ownership structure, on the loan provision. I have gathered a unique dataset of private and privatized banks and also private firms active in Iran’s stock market, which covers the... 

In the banking and macro-financial literature، banks are modeled as financial intermediaries who give loans to the borrowers from their deposits. In these models، deposits are created from the accumulation of real goods. Besides this view، which is used more in the academic environment، others who are most practical، describe banks not intermediaries، but credit creator which do not need deposits to pay loans. In this research، we use credit creation concept in a Neoclassic environment that the central bank’s monetary policy is fractional reserve to answer this question that if banks could create credit for firms based on its future income، while firms have CIA constraints، how do economic... 

The financial depth in Iran has decreased since 2008 and simultaneously the interbank rate has increased. In addition, researches show that the bank health has decreased over the same period. This research investigates to find evidence for the existence of the relationship between the bank health indicators and its lending power. In this regard, the balance sheet data and financial statement data of the Iranian banks during 2007 to 2014 have been investigated and the effect of the bank health indicators on their lending power studied at the normal conditions and sanction periods. In this research like Kashyap and Stein 2000, and Gambacorta and Marques2011, the bank lending channel consider... 

Some have argued that two-way markets, such as the online rideshar-ing platforms, which divide their services into different segments and provides each of these segments to the independent workforce based on an articulate and transparent income criterion, are more attrac-tive to women, which in turn, can reduce income disparities. This is due to the flexibility in working hours as well as the transparency of the labor payment process. In this study, using micro-data related to the trips of male and female drivers of Tap30, we find out that there is a 2.2 % gender earning gap between drivers. Furthermore, the fac-tors affecting the possible income difference are identified. On the one hand,... 

The determinants of business cycles and how to deal with them are amongst the most important issues in macroeconomics. Using the annual data between 1980 to 2012, available for six oil producing members of Gulf cooperation council, we draw a connection between trade structure and business cycle synchronization. In fact, we try to answer whether the same trade structure in these countries with very similar characteristics has led to synchronized booms and recessions among them. Assuming cross correlation, different estimation methods, including common correlated effects, confirm the positive significant effect of trades tructure on business...