One of the main elements of economic sanctions against Iran due to its nuclear and military programs is crude oil exportation restrictions in addition to investment in Iranian energy related projects. Senders of such sanction are interested in understanding the impacts of such embargos on...

Resource-rich economies and ethnically divided societies are linked to higher income inequality at the macro level. Our goal is to empirically examine the income inequality and welfare effects of the direct distribution of resource rents and subsequent taxation in Iran. We use rich micro survey...

There is an increasing tension between the Iranian Government and the west on an increasingly likely European oil embargo and the Iranian threat to close the Strait of Hormuz. The main question is: What will happen to the international oil prices in the case of shocks in the flow of Iranian oil...

Strong growth in disposable income has inflated consumption to unprecedented, but not sustainable levels. In this process consumer behavior has been changing. To explain the driving forces of this development, the paper introduces a theory of evolving consumer preferences that is molded in an...

We develop a formal model that looks at the mutually endogenous determination of foreign direct investments in natural resource-rich countries, the decision of host governments to expropriate these investments, and the level of corruption. Higher resource production makes expropriation more...

Resource-rich countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have the highest youth unemployment rate in the world. While other parts of the world are experiencing an increasing trend in new firms’ formation as a potential solution for their unemployment problem, the MENA region has the...

This study provides the first empirical investigation to test one of transmission channels of resource curse, i.e., marginalized entrepreneurship activities. Our panel data analysis of 65 countries from 2004 to 2011 shows a negative and statistically significant association between oil rents...