---

Nowadays, the effect and importance of housing and its role in Iran’s economy cannot be underestimated. Housing as a fundamental and basic need for Iranian households is not just a shelter, but is considered as a crucial asset. It has a superior financial value as well. Expansion in urbanization, especially in Tehran, regarding its financial and political importance has contributed to this situation. In this paper, using time interval data between the years 1981 to 2005, the casual relation between variables which affect housing in urban districts through analyzing and monitoring Granger-Hissao, Simes causality test, have been utilized and its impacts are examined in self-regression model. The results indicate that there was a causality relation between price of house, bank loans, number of households and their incomes. Nevertheless, house price had the most impact on instabilities of housing during this period.

---

This study examines the relationship between financial sector development and poverty reduction in the Iranian economy during 1973-2007. To explore a long-term relationship between variables, Bounds Testing Approach of Pesaran and others (2001) was used and to investigate the interface and causality between financial sector development and poverty reduction Dolado and Lutkepohl’s approach and causalty test (1996) was applied. In this paper for showing financial development, three alternative indicators and for representing poverty  the cost of private consumption per capita are used. Results from this study indicate a long-term relationship between variables in the model. Dolado and Lutkepohl causality test results also show that financial development is not effective in poverty reduction .

---

One century has passed since the explanation of relationship between financial development and economic growth by Schumpeter. However, there are serious debates among economists in this regard. Especially, the causality relationship between economic growth and financial development, in most of the cases, the causality from economic growth to financial development is confirmed in different countries. One of the neglected issues in this field is to consider the infrastructures, which can play important roles in the effectiveness of financial development on economic growth. One pillar of the financial development is the quality of banking financial services, which to a great extent is influenced by ownership and intervention of government in banking system. This paper, by using VECM model, tests the tri-variate causality among economic growthand financial development in the presence of public ownership of banks index during 1980 to 2010. The results show that in contrast to the bi-variate causality tests, which indicate the adverse causality from economic growth to financial development, the tri-variate causality tests reject this claim except for the case of the commercial banks’ assets.  

---

One of the current challenges and complications in the world is the climate change and global warming, which has numerous and varied effects and consequences in different regions. In this regard, the effects of economic activities on the increase in greenhouse gases and also the effects of greenhouse gases on economic activities have become increasingly controversial. In this study, an investigation was done upon the bidirectional causality relationship between real gross domestic product per capita and carbon dioxide emissions per capita in different countries. For this purpose, the Vector Auto-Regression Model with the micro panel application was used and the World Bank member countries were divided into different groups. Results indicated bidirectional causality relationship between Gross domestic product (GDP) and CO₂ for three groups of countries. In addition, there was a one-way causal relationship from GDP o carbon dioxide volume for subgroups of countries with high average economic growth rate (HGR) and the rest of the world countries (ROW). This means that, to accomplish the international goals of decreasing the emissions of pollutant gases, collaboration between HGR and ROW group of the countries with industrial countries is indispensable. Moreover, heterogeneous non-causality test for Iran suggests that the economic activities are having increasingly negative environmental impacts on the country.

---

Exacerbating income inequality and increasing crimes give rise to waste of human and financial resources of the society. However, causality direction between income inequality and crime remains a controversial issue. Applying Hsiao’s causality test for the 1984-2014 period, this study examines the direction of causality between these social problems in Iran. The crimes under study include crimes against property (embezzlement, bribery, forgery, theft and bounced checks) and violent crimes (murder, battery, duress and harassment). In addition, Gini coefficient is used as an inequality index. The optimal lag lengths are one for crimes against property and two for violent crimes, respectively. Findings indicate significant bidirectional causal relationships between income inequality and two kinds of crimes.