Political economy
Abolfazl Shahmohammadi; Mohammad Ali Feizpour; Mehdi Hajamini; Mohammad Abedi Ardakani
Abstract
Many studies have evaluated political power from a qualitative and quantitative perspective. But the present study tries to provide a quantitative criterion for calculation of power. To do this, using the country’s budget law, the institutions that enjoys from national budget are identified and ...
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Many studies have evaluated political power from a qualitative and quantitative perspective. But the present study tries to provide a quantitative criterion for calculation of power. To do this, using the country’s budget law, the institutions that enjoys from national budget are identified and then the officials who are at the head of those institutions from each province are identified. Then the importance coefficient of each official is calculated based on multiplication of two indicators: the allocated budget to his/her institution or organization and the duration of his/her tenure in each year. The power matrix for each province is made. Finally, the power index for Iranian provinces is calculated using methods of Simple Additive Weighting, TOPSIS, and Numerical Taxonomy. Then, according to TOPSIS method, the regions of Iran were divided into four groups. The findings show fundamental inequalities in the distribution of economic- political power in the regions of Iran during the period of 2009-2019. Also, The most fluctuations in economic-political power index have occured mainly in the middle groups. Since, most previous studies have emphasized regional inequalities in Iran based on various indicators, it seems that there is a correlation between the distribution of economic-political power and regional inequalities of Economic development. As a result, given the current status without change in the political power of the provinces, one can not expect a significant change in the economic development of the regions.
Seyed Ali Rohani; Dariush Aboohamzeh
Abstract
Efficient government cash management (collection of revenues, receipts and allocation of expenditures), is one of the most important treasury functions and a critical prerequisite for fiscal discipline of the government. The present study investigates the main processes and procedures of the Treasury ...
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Efficient government cash management (collection of revenues, receipts and allocation of expenditures), is one of the most important treasury functions and a critical prerequisite for fiscal discipline of the government. The present study investigates the main processes and procedures of the Treasury cash management in Iran, according to related laws, by-laws and regulations. For this purpose, processes related to inflow and outflow of funds to/from the treasury, is reviewed, classified by type of funds (Public Funds, Private Funds, Funds of State-Owned Companies, oil revenues, and Deposit Trust Funds). Graphs extracted from this study, provide the preliminaries to evaluate the efficacy of Treasury cash management processes. Based on our findings, the main criticisms of the current cash management processes in Iran are: 1- Slow and lagging flow of revenues and expenditures of the public sector, 2- Rent-seeking behavior in banks and government agencies, 3- Inefficient cash payment procedures (based on allocation). According to other countries' experiences and also the IMF policy recommendations, the first step for the modification of the existing processes of the Treasury liquidity management, is the establishment of Treasury Single Account (TSA) and concentrating all government accounts at the Central Bank, which will increase transparency, effective monitoring and efficiency of government cash resources.