This study investigates the main causes and consequences of import and export smuggling and estimates the relative index of smuggling in Iran from 1970 to 2002. The Multiple Indicators - Multiple Causes (MIMIC) econometric modelling is used for a comprehensive analysis of the latent variable of...

We use the synthetic control method to estimate the effect of international banking and energy sanctions from 2012 to 2015 on military spending of Iran. We create a synthetic control group that mimics the socioeconomic characteristics of Iran before the international sanctions of 2012. We then...

This study examines the causal joint effect of a new political regime and war against Iraq on life expectancy of Iranians for the period 1978–1988 during the revolution and war. I use a synthetic control approach to construct a synthetic Iran based on a weighted average of other Middle East...

This paper evaluates whether the level of public corruption influences COVID-19 case fatality rates. Using cross-section data, including 64 countries and multiple regression techniques, we find that the level of corruption is positively and significantly associated with COVID-19 human costs....

This study examines the causal effect of the violent "Woman, Life, Freedom" protests in Iran during the last quarter of 2022 on individual life satisfaction. To evaluate the impact, we use two original representative surveys in Iran conducted in 2022. Our results, based on an ordered logit...

This study investigates the case of Iran to evaluate how changes in the intensity of international sanctions affect internal conflict in the target country. Estimating a vector autoregressive model for the period between 2001q2 and 2020q3 with quarterly data on internal conflict and its three...

We study how the shadow economy affects pollution and how this effect depends on corruption levels in public administration. Production in the shadow economy allows firms to avoid environmental regulation policies; a large informal sector may be accompanied by higher pollution levels. Our...

We study the association between resource rents and political stability, highlighting the importance of the distribution of political power as a mediating factor. We present a simple theoretical model showing that increased rents are likely to be positively associated with the stability of a...

This study examines how quality of political institutions affects the distribution of government budget and how development of government spending in major sections shapes the political institutions in Iran. This question has become especially important due to recent international sanctions,...

We study how natural-resource rents affect the risk of internal conflict within countries and how the federal structure of countries influences this relationship. Natural-resource abundance may induce excessive rent-seeking and thus increase the risk of internal conflict. Fiscal and political...