Investigating the effect of structural change policies on Iran's domestic investment

Subject Areas : Computational economics

seyed reza pournaghi ¹ , Ahmad Jafari Samimi ² , Farid Asgari ³ , Farzaneh Khalili ⁴

1 - Doctoral student
2 - Professor of Department of Economics, Mazandaran University
3 - Assistant Professor of Department of Economics, Islamic Azad University, Abhar Branch
4 - Assistant Professor of Department of Economics, Islamic Azad University, Abhar Branch,

Received: 2023-03-15 Accepted : 2023-06-21 Published : 2024-03-17

Keywords: Auto Regressive Distribute Lag model, , , , , Financial Liberalization, , , , , Trade Liberalization, , , , , Privatization, , , , , Capital,

Abstract :

Purpose: Investment is considered one of the most important components of economic growth, so that the fluctuations of this variable will cause economic prosperity or stagnation. Based on this, for a long-time theorist have been trying to prepare a model to explain investment behavior and identify the most important factors affecting it. Among the policies implemented in an economy, structural change policies are of great importance. Therefore, in this study, the role of structural change policies (privatization, financial liberalization, trade liberalization) as the most important economic policies on the investment volume in Iran has been investigated. Methodology: In order to achieve the objectives of the study, the autoregression model with extended intervals (ARDL) was used. The required information was received from the websites of Central Bank, Iran Statistics Center and Privatization Organization for the period from 1991 to 2020. The variables of the value of transferred assets and the intensity of trade indicate the policy of privatization and trade liberalization, respectively. The variables of floating exchange rate, foreign assets of the central bank and the value of stock transactions to GDP indicate the policy of financial liberalization. Findings: The results of this research showed that only the privatization policy had a positive (non-significant) effect on the country's investment, and the policies of financial liberalization and trade liberalization have different behaviors in the short and long term on domestic investment. The trade liberalization variable has a positive effect in the short term and a negative effect on investment in the long term. Examining the variables that make up the financial liberalization policy shows that financial liberalization has no significant effect on investment in the short term, and the effect of this policy is significant in the long term. Each of the coefficients of the variables of the central bank's foreign assets, free exchange rate, value of stock transactions to GDP is equal to -0.05, -0.24 and 0.26 respectively. Among the mentioned variables, the free exchange rate and the value of stock transactions have a significant effect on domestic investment. The effect of these two variables on investment is positive (0.02) in the long term, also the total price index variables and the ratio of construction expenditures to current will cause a decrease and the gross domestic product will cause an increase in investment. The value of the estimated error correction coefficient (-0.85) shows that 85% of domestic investment imbalances are eliminated in each period. In other words, the imbalance in domestic investment will be resolved in less than two periods (2 years). Conclusion: The extensive changes caused by the implementation of structural change policies in different countries led to the study of the effects of financial liberalization and trade liberalization policies on the country's investment during the period from 1991 to 2020. The results of the estimation of the autoregression model with wide intervals show that only the privatization policy has a positive (non-significant) effect on the country's investment, and the policies of financial liberalization and trade liberalization have different behaviors in the short and long term on investment. They have internal Therefore, it is recommended that in the implementation of the aforementioned policies, their possible results are predicted in advance and appropriate measures are taken to compensate for the short-term negative effects. Increasing the degree of openness of the economy, which requires the acceleration of trade exchanges, will increase investment in the country in the short term. Therefore, it is necessary for the government to provide the grounds for attracting domestic investment by reforming the appropriate structure in this sector. Also, in order to eliminate the negative effects of the implementation of this policy in the long term, it is necessary to specify a limit on the level of trade liberalization in the country in order to reduce the negative effects of this policy in the long term. Considering the effect of the total price index on investment, it is recommended that the government always pays attention to the creation of economic stability and the control of the inflation rate, because inflation (price index) in addition to reducing the real interest rate, has caused an increase in uncertainty about the future. and reduces investment. Considering the positive effect of the country's gross domestic product on investment, one of the most important recommendations for the growth of investment in the country is to adopt growth-oriented policies. Also, due to the variable negative effect of the ratio of construction expenditures to current expenditures in this study, it is necessary to change the balance of government expenditures (construction and current expenditures) in favor of the country's construction expenditures, in addition to implementing financial expansion policies for the growth of the economy. investment in the country will increase. So that the results of this study showed that the low share of construction expenses compared to current expenses caused the effect of government expenses (the ratio of these two expenses to each other) on domestic investment to be evaluated negatively.