The Islamic Revolution of 1979, the eight-year war (1980-88) with Iraq, and the collapse of oil prices in 1986 dealt huge blows to Iran's economy. In this paper we use a pseudo panel constructed from annual multiple surveys during 1984-2004 to understand how individuals and families have fared...

In recent years Iran has greatly expanded its early childhood education program, taking first place in the Middle East in preschool enrolment. In this paper we examine the reasons for the unusual expansion and argue that it is in large part an institutional response to demographic changes in...

In this paper we develop a spatial panel simultaneous-equations model of employment growth, migration behavior, local public services and median household income in a partial lag-adjustment growth-equilibrium framework and utilizing a one-way error component model for the disturbances. To...

This paper presents a comparative study of private returns to schooling of urban men in Egypt, Iran, and Turkey using similar survey data and a uniform methodology. We employ three surveys for each country that span nearly two decades, from the 1980s to 2006, and, to increase the comparability...

We estimate a monetary policy rule allowing for possible frequency dependence - i.e. allowing the central bank to respond di¤erently to persistent innovations than to transitory innovations, in both the real-time unemployment rate and the real-time inflation rate. The method is flexible, and...

The nominal exchange rate is both a macroeconomic variable equilibrating international markets and a financial asset that embodies expectations and prices risks associated with cross border currency holdings. Recognizing this, we adopt a joint macro-finance strategy to model the exchange rate....

The "home bias" phenomenon states that empirically, economic agents often under- utilize opportunities beyond their country borders, and it is well-documented in various international pricing and purchase patterns. This bias manifests in the forms of fewer exchanges of goods and net...

In this paper we develop a simple model to link anchoring and loss aversion with house price dynamics. We have two testable implications: 1) when both cognitive biases are present, price dispersion and trade volume are pro-cyclical; 2) if anchoring decreases with time, then price dispersion and...

In a model of strategic network formation, the endogenously formed network is built around a pre-existing network. We envisage that the pre-existing or core network is publicly provided. Strategic network formation is decentralized: Players act in their private interest and bear the costs when...