Siamak ShokouhiFard; Roya Aleemran; Farzad Rahimzadeh; AmirAli Farhang
Abstract
Expended Abstract: Introduction The business environment is one of the determinants of any country's economic status and based on it, each country's economic conditions can be studied and analyzed. The more transparent and competitive business environment, the better economic health, adoption ...
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Expended Abstract: Introduction The business environment is one of the determinants of any country's economic status and based on it, each country's economic conditions can be studied and analyzed. The more transparent and competitive business environment, the better economic health, adoption of favorable policies, and improvement of economic indicators. In other words, the effect of a favorable business environment on increasing the attraction of domestic and foreign investment, job creation, and growth of GDP is quite evident (Mehrabani et al., 2016). In an economy, several factors affect the business environment. One of the most important of these factors is corruption. Numerous studies on corruption show that corruption can be detrimental to an economy. The extent of the destructive effects of corruption depends on the degree and level of the national economic development. Corruption initially hinders and reduces economic growth by reducing the incentive to invest. It then prevents growth from growing by restructuring government spending. Corruption in various ways undermines economic growth. This social dilemma prevents expanding the market mechanism by deviating from the allocation of resources and incentives. It also leads to the weakening of property rights and the non-guarantee of benefits arising from the provisions of contracts and to the detriment of small businesses (Tanzi, 1998). Theoretical frame work Theoretically, there is a significant relationship between the negative consequences of corruption and bribery and ease of doing business. In most newly industrialized countries, such as India, Brazil, and the Philippines, it has been observed that the good quality of business rules and regulations has led to the growth of such activities and possibly encouraged foreign direct investment. The road has acted in favor of the economy at the macro-level (Sung, 2013). Methodology Considering the situation of Iran and selected Islamic countries in terms of the business environment and because improving the business environment has been one of the most important challenges and goals of macroeconomic plans in Iran in recent decades, therefore in this research, the effective factors on the business environment studied for 2005 to 2018 with emphasis on the corruption in the selected Islamic countries. To do this, the data was extracted from the World Bank's database and the International Organization for Transparency, and the research model was estimated using the quantile regression method. In this study, the corruption variable was measured by the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, and the World Bank Business Index measured the business variable. Results and Discussion The results show that a high level of corruption hurts the ease of doing business in countries and worsens the business environment. Unemployment and inflation rates as indicators of economic instability have a negative impact on the business environment, But at the 5% significance level, the effect of the unemployment rate is only statistically significant in the first, second, and third quintiles. Also, tax revenue, trade openness, and exchange rate volatility have negative, positive, and negative effects on the business environment. These effects are statistically significant at a 5 percent level of significance. Conclusions and Suggestions Considering the negative impact of corruption on the business environment, it is suggested that by implementing policies such as e-government development, reducing government size, improving the culture and level of public morality by promoting condemnation of corruption and bribery, preventing government influence in regulatory and inspection bodies, eliminate Excessive guidelines and regulations that increase the potential for abuse and corruption, reform of organizational culture, expand the free flow of information and encourage people to report corruption, stabilize business laws, enforce preventive laws and regulations, and tackle economic corruption seriously and decisively. The level of corruption in the country is controlled and as a result, by controlling (reducing) corruption, the business environment becomes favorable. According to the research results, inflation and unemployment as two indicators of macroeconomic instability have a negative impact on business in Iran and selected Islamic countries. Therefore, the Central Bank must control the country's liquidity and inflation by implementing monetary policies commensurate with its economic situation. The government should also improve the business environment by implementing appropriate employment policies and increasing the country's employment level. Given the negative impact of exchange rate fluctuations on the country's business environment, the central bank, and the government, to create confidence in the foreign exchange market and prevent exchange rate fluctuations, should implement exchange rate policies appropriate to economic and sanctions conditions and minimize exchange rate fluctuations. Given the positive impact of countries' trade openness on the business environment, the adoption of appropriate policies in the field of trade liberalization to take advantage of trade opportunities and capital in the global economy and the development of exports of services and goods and thus improve the business environment is proposed by the government.
