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Iran’s economy is vulnerable to fluctuations in oil price. This study examines the impact of oil shocks on economic growth using Vector Auto-Regressive (VAR) method. The Mork’s (2010) method was used to test hypothesis of symmetry in negative and positive shocks. The results show that, the effects of negative and positive shocks on economic growth are asymmetric. In addition, the results of variance decomposition of economic growth indicate that the effects of positives shocks in explaining economic growth fluctuations are greater than negative ones. On the other hand, the results from impulse response functions show that positive and negative shocks have positive and negative effects on economic growth, respectively; however, the size of positive shocks impact on output growth is far more than that of  negative shocks in the long-run. Moreover, the estimated VAR model shows that there is a high and positive correlation between oil revenues and gross domestic product (GDP), which confirms again dependency of national economy to oil revenues.

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Boom and recession cycles in different countries relate to the U.S. business cycles. The study of severe recession in the U.S. can predict a contemporaneous global recession and provide policies to reduce the negative effects. This paper analyzes the business cycles of the U.S. using three stylized facts and reasons. The consequences of U.S. business cycles, as a developed country, have been compared to those of Iranian business cycle in the final section of each part. The period covers quarterly data for U.S during 1960-2010. This paper analyzes the data using VAR model. Our findings show the severe economic recessions have been started in the U.S. during 1980 and 2008.in addition, The U.S. economy has experienced the longest period of economic boom during 1980s and 1990s. Comparing business cycle features of the U.S. and Iran suggests that the severity and extent of boom and recession cycles is much higher in Iran than America. According to the stylized facts on business cycles, some common features of the variables have been confirmed in both countries. On the other variables, the Iranian model is the same of developing countries and the American model is consistent with the developed countries. In terms of the causes of business cycles, the private residential investment has been major cause of business cycles in American economy in the recent years, while exogenous oil price shocks on the Iranian economy has been the most important factor.

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One of the fundamental problems in regional economic development is determining the ways in which government can allocate resources of society so that economic growth and income equality among provinces can be achieved simultaneously. In this study, a Vector Auto Regressive Model is estimated using seasonal data during Q1: 2000- Q4:2009. Inter-provincial income inequality is obtained with both Gini Coefficient and Theil Index. The results show that, in short run, income inequality among provinces accelerates economic growth and in long run decelerates it, however, it does not return to its initial level. Economic growth in short run accelerates income inequality among provinces, but decelerates it in long run. Robustness tests with Theil Index, confirm our primary results applying Gini Coefficient.