The cross-impact between financial markets, Covid-19 pandemic, and economic sanctions: The case of Iran.

The main financial markets in the Iranian Economy include the stock exchange, foreign exchange, oil, and gold markets. The sharp fluctuations in these markets, especially those caused by the severe sanctions imposed on Iran in May 2018, and the pandemic outbreak of Covid-19 have led to more confusion and uncertainty among investors. One of the effective approaches to examine such unstable conditions is to study the co-movement(s) between markets to identify the leading variable(s). Thus, in the present study, Wavelet Coherence Analysis was applied to examine the co-movements between markets in a time period from September 2014 to June 2020, as an intense period of uncertainty in Iran. In other words, in this study, the markets were investigated in different sub-periods. Also, the Segmented Regression was performed to estimate the impact of sanctions and the Covid-19 pandemic on the co-movements of financial markets in Iran. The results showed that the oil price had a low co-movement with the other three markets, i.e. stock exchange, exchange rate, and gold markets. Thus, the oil market can be a suitable alternative for risk aversion investors. Meanwhile, the oil market could also act as a source of finance for the government during the sanctions period. That possibly explains the recent decision by the Iranian government to use the oil market to finance its budget deficit. Between the exchange rate and gold price, the gold price was identified as the leading variable. While the exchange rate and gold price did not show a significant co-movement in stable conditions, they did show a significant co-movement in unstable conditions, as in times of sanctions or during a global pandemic and thus influenced the investors' portfolio risk. This result is important from a policy-making perspective. Based on this result, the policymakers can, especially during crises and unstable conditions, control the gold market and make it more stable by managing the foreign exchange market.

Financial innovation and environmental quality: Fresh empirical evidence from the EU Countries.

Evidence shows that the European Union (EU) is a leader in using financial innovation to overcome environmental challenges and ensure sustainable development. This study explores the heterogeneous effects of financial innovations on carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) due to their destructive effects in the context of the EU, by employing the novel Method of Moments Quantile Regression (MM-QR). The study also evaluates the environmental Kuznets hypothesis during the period of 2000-2020. We used four proxies for financial innovation; the ratio of the aggregate money supply to narrow money (M3/M1), the ratio of broad to narrow money (M2/M1), the percentage change in domestic credit to the private sector (% of GDP) and a composite index of these indices using the Principal Component Analysis technique. The findings indicate that raising three financial innovation proxies can effectively raise environmental quality. It should be noted that while M3/M1 has a stronger and negative effect on CO2 emissions in low quantiles, M2/M1 has a stronger and negative effect on CO2 emissions in high quantiles. Therefore, it is recommended that a larger amount of M2 and M3 resources be directed towards green projects for financing in countries with both high and low levels of CO2 emissions, respectively.

Energy transition determinants in the European Union: threshold effects.

The World Economic Forum (2018) has introduced a comprehensive proxy for the Energy Transition Index (ETI), which includes two main sub-indices; the energy System Performance Index (SPI) and Transition Readiness (TRI). The first sub-index measures the current state of the energy system, and the latter indicates future transition(s). Any factor that can move these two levers in a positive direction will eventually lead to improved energy transitions. Various factors affect the energy transition. Since the ETI is a comprehensive index that includes socio-economic, governance structures, and political dimensions of the energy transition, it is expected to be impacted by globalization and economic complexity. The present study seeks to answer whether the impact of globalization and economic complexity on both energy transition sub-indicators is in the same direction. Also, do the effects of these two variables vary at different levels of energy transition and its sub-indices? For this purpose, we implement a fixed-effect panel threshold model for data from the European Union. The results demonstrate that (overall) globalization significantly influences the ETI and its sub-indices at all levels. The economic complexity in all three regimes reduces TRI (at 90% or 95% confidence intervals). Nevertheless, it harms the SPI and ETI if they exceed the threshold.

The impact of Health Transformation Plan on natural vaginal delivery and cesarean section frequency in Iran: an interrupted time series analysis.

OBJECTIVE: This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of the Iran's Health Transformation Plan on the frequency of natural vaginal deliveries (NVDs), cesarean sections (CSs), and total deliveries in the Fars province of Iran. RESULTS: Average number of total deliveries before and after the reform were 3946 and 3810, respectively (p = 0.164). The ratio of CS to total deliveries in the first study month was 54%. This rate reached 47% in the last month (p < 0.01). However, it had much fluctuation trend. The ITSA results showed that in the short-run, the NVD rate increased (ß = 492.79, p < 0.01), the rate of CS decreased (ß = - 407.09, p < 0.01), and total deliveries increased (ß = 85.75, p < 0.724). However, in the long-run, the NVD (ß = 5.74, p < 0.423), CS (ß = 10.21, p < 0.189), and total deliveries (ß = 15.96, p < 0.256) had no significant changes after the reform. Encouraging the NVD package was influential in the short-run but not in the longrun in Iran. Pricing and supply-side policies could not reduce the rate of non-clinical CS on their own. Therefore, paying attention to demand-side policies and changes in consumer behaviors, such as educating the women at the age of pregnancy about the advantages and disadvantages of CS and NVD and correcting misconceptions, could be helpful.