Nexus between economic sanctions and inflation: a case study in Iran

Conventional studies have applied dummy variables to analyse the relationship between economic sanctions and inflation while we construct an index which is called Trade-Financial Sanctions (TF index). TF Index is a liner combination of indices which includes trade openness and foreign investment by applying the principal component model. Through the TF index and market exchange rate the impact of economic sanctions on inflation is analysed in the three phases of sanctions; free sanctions, heavy sanctions, and light sanctions. The results illustrate that the TF index decreases inflation when the Iran’s economy experiences free sanctions or light sanctions relative to when the economy is in heavy sanctions. Heavy sanctions create instability in the market exchange rates and widening the gap between the market and the official exchange rates. Furthermore, economic sanctions increase expected inflation among the people and drive higher inflation. Therefore, these results suggest that the government should work more seriously to solve the main obstacles of trade and investment inflows imposed by the economic sanctions.     

The impact of economic sanctions on international trade: How do threatened sanctions compare with imposed sanctions?

We draw on established theoretical works in international political economy to compare the empirical effect of threatened and imposed economic sanctions on international trade. To deepen the analysis, we analyze whether there are any differential effects when different instruments of sanctions are employed, as well as whether the effect of sanctions is product specific. To do this, we use the gravity model and recent detailed disaggregated data on sanctions spanning the period 1960–2009. Our results show that the impact of threatened sanctions differs qualitatively and quantitatively from imposed sanctions. Whereas imposed sanctions lead to a decrease in the trade flow between the sender and its target, a threat of sanctions leads to an increase. The positive impact of the threat may be due to economic agents in both the sender and its target resorting to stockpiling prior to the actual imposition of sanctions to minimize any adverse consequences of the sanctions. These differential effects of threatened and imposed sanctions also extend to food and medicinal products, as well as when different instruments of sanctions are employed.     

Which sanctions matter? analysis of the EU/russian sanctions of 2014

We use a quasi-natural experiment of reciprocal imposition of trade sanctions by Russia and the EU since 2014. Using UNCTAD/BACI bilateral flows data we take this unique opportunity to analyse both sanctions. In particular, we study the effectiveness of narrow versus broadly defined sanctions, and differences in the effectiveness of sanctions imposed on exports and imports. We show that the Russian sanctions imposed on European and American food imports resulted in about an 8 times stronger decline in trade flows than those imposed by the EU and the US on exports of extraction equipment. These results do not appear to be driven by diversion of trade flows via non-sanctioning countries. Hence the difference in sanctions’ effectiveness can be attributed to the limited retroactivity of Western sanctions, which allowed exemptions for exports made pursuant to contracts made prior to 2014.     

Country impacts of multilateral oil sanctions

In recent years, economic sanctions have become an important tool in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. Though usually aimed at a single country, they also can affect the economies of other nations. Knowledge of such impacts would inform U.S. policy-makers as to which other countries might be helped or harmed, and help predict which other nations likely would support or oppose the sanctions. This article presents results relating to the imposition of sanctions in the oil market. These results are obtained from exercising a dynamic computable general equilibrium model built by Charles River Associates under sponsorship of the American Petroleum Institute. The model is used to analyze GDP effects on a number of countries from multilateral oil sanctions against Iraq. The results suggest that it is possible to provide useful information regarding the impacts of sanctions as a foreign policy tool. However, they also indicate that sanctions can be expensive, with substantial spillover effects. Though sanctions may be an appropriate policy choice in given instances, these effects should be incorporated into foreign policy analyses.     

Sanctions that signal: An experiment

The introduction of sanctions provides incentives for more pro-social behavior, but may also be a signal that non-cooperation is prevalent. In an experimental minimum-effort coordination game we investigate the effects of the information contained in the choice to sanction. We compare the effect of sanctions that are introduced exogenously by the experimenter to that of sanctions which have been actively chosen by a subject who has superior information about the previous effort of the other players. We find that cooperative subjects perceive actively chosen sanctions as a negative signal which significantly reduces the effect of sanctions.     

International sanctions’ impact on energy efficiency in target states

This paper investigates the impact of international sanctions on energy efficiency by employing the panel fixed effect as well as average marginal effect from the Tobit model via data on 30 sanctioned states over the period 1996–2015 with international sanctions including unilateral, plurilateral, U.S., EU, UN, economic, and non-economic cases. Overall, we find that the imposition of unilateral sanctions leads to a 0.067% decrease in energy efficiency, but that of plurilateral sanctions positively contribute to energy efficiency in the case of the full sample of countries. Moreover, the imposition of UN sanctions has a greater decrease on energy efficiency in the target states than the 0.042% reduction of energy efficiency when the sanctionist is the U.S. For robustness, empirical results indicate that the imposition of plurilateral sanctions results in a drop of energy efficiency in Islamic countries, but an increase in non-Islamic countries, while there are also negative shocks induced by the imposition of EU sanctions on energy efficiency in Asian countries, but not for non-Asian countries. We also consider endogenous problems and dynamic specification by using indicator variables and System GMM. In summary, our empirical findings provide policy suggestions for those sanctioned countries about how to maintain energy efficiency when facing international sanctions.     

The effects of tariffs on coalition formation in a dynamic global warming game

The prospects for cooperation on climate protection beyond 2012 are currently uncertain. Thus policy instruments which foster participation in International Environmental Agreements (IEA) are in demand. Among the instruments under discussion are trade sanctions. Multi-region optimal growth models are a state of the art tool for integrated assessment, but introducing trade sanctions distorts the competitive equilibrium, making it difficult to compute numerically. We introduce trade and trade sanctions into a model of coalition stability to assess the potential of trade sanctions to support an IEA. Trade is modeled by having all countries produce a generic output good, but adopting national product differentiation (Armington assumption). Coalitions are free to impose tariffs on imports from non-cooperating countries. We solve the model numerically using a refined version of Negishi's [Negishi, T., 1960. Welfare economics and existence of an equilibrium for a competitive economy. Metroeconomica 12, 92–97] basic algorithm. We then apply the model to analyze the influence of tariffs on international cooperation. The model suggests that there is indeed a significant potential to raise participation through trade sanctions, even when goods from different countries are nearly perfect substitutes. Furthermore we investigate the effect of trade sanctions on global welfare, environmental effectiveness, and the credibility of the tariff mechanism.     

Experiments on unemployment benefit sanctions and job search behavior

This paper presents the results of an experimental study on unemployment benefit sanctions. The experimental set-up allows us to distinguish between the effect of benefit sanctions once they are imposed (the ex post effect) and the threat of getting a benefit sanction imposed (the ex ante effect). We find that both effects matter. Moreover, the ex ante effect turns out to be substantial and bigger than the ex post effect. Benefits sanctions stimulate the outflow from unemployment.     

Do economic sanctions affect protectionism? Evidence from agricultural support

The objective of this paper is to examine whether economic sanctions contribute to influencing the target countries’ protectionist policies in the agricultural sector. Using pooled mean group estimations in a dynamic heterogeneous panel setting, we find robust empirical evidence that, in the long‐run, economic sanctions decrease agricultural protection in the target counties, and this effect is mitigated by the wealth of the target's economy. However, the relationship is insignificant in the short run. Furthermore, our results also suggest that the impact of sanctions on agricultural protection (a) increases with the severity of economic sanctions, (b) is greater for multilateral sanctions than unilateral sanctions, and (c) is more severe on agricultural protection when sanctions span a longer duration.     

The impact of the judicial objective function on the enforcement of environmental standards

We investigate the influence of a judge’s objective function on the type of sanctions used for enforcing environmental standards. We focus on the difference between monetary and non-monetary penalties. We examine the extent to which judges take social costs of sanctions into account when making judgments in court in the context of environmental violations. We also conduct an empirical analysis to test the main findings of the theoretical model using court data from several Belgian jurisdictions. We find that besides minimizing environmental damages judges also take social costs of sanctions into account in their decision-making.     

International Economic Sanctions Against a Dictator

Wintrobe's (1990, 1998) dictatorship model is adapted to examine the impacts of economic sanctions on an autocrat. It is shown that the dictator's choice of the level of power, and the quantities of loyalty and repression used as inputs in the production of power, are affected by the type and magnitude of sanctions and by the impact of sanctions on the political effectiveness of opposition groups. Sanctions have direct and indirect effects on the prices of loyalty and repression as well as potentially generating rents that might be captured either by the dictator or by the opposition.     

Trade policy and ecology

Trade sanctions on product exports are often used as measures for conservation of stocks of living resources. Two opposing approaches are investigated. The harvest approach argues that sanctions reduce the harvest, and thus protects the stock. It is shown that this does not consider the long run effects nor the effects of sanctions on the management system. The investment approach argues that increased price protects the stock, making the species a profitable investment. It is shown that this approach does not consider the asset effects of price changes, and that the sanctions usually increase the stock in an one species analysis. If the wildlife competes for land the conclusions may be different, but still sanctions usually works. If the manager has a joint management of several species, the stock effects of sanctions are ambiguous, depending on both the species interaction, and the profitability of the harvesting from each of them. In this case it is not possible to use intuitive reasoning, sanctions give distortions to all stocks simultaneously. The threat of extinction depends crucially on the unit cost in harvesting of depleted stocks. The paper concludes that trade policy is a too general measure for the management of living resources, and may implicate important economic distortions to the ecological system.This study is partially funded by the Research Council of Norway (Environment and Development). I thank Derek Clark, Tore Thonstad, Frode Steen and two anonymous referees for helpful comments.     

IMPACT OF ANTI-APARTHEID SANCTIONS ON SOUTH AFRICA: SOME TRADE AND FINANCIAL EVIDENCE

Economic sanctions against South Africa presumably are intended to cause economic damage. Trade sanctions should induce the South African terms of trade to deteriorate, and investment sanctions should cause capital flight and cause the exchange rate to deteriorate. However, due to the nature of the South African economy and to certain policies of the South African government, these impacts may be difficult to achieve.     

Rewards and Sanctions and the Provision of Public Goods in One-Shot Settings

A burgeoning literature in experimental studies of the Voluntary Contribution Mechanism focuses on the ability of institutions that allow the monitoring, sanctioning, and/or rewarding of others to facilitate cooperation. In this paper rewards and sanctions are examined in a one-shot VCM setting that so far has been unexplored in the literature. The study finds that while some subjects are willing to reward and sanction others at a personal cost, the opportunity to reward or sanction is ineffective in facilitating cooperation relative to previous experiments in which a repeated game environment is employed. The study also compares behavior in an environment in which the imposition of rewards and sanctions is certain to an environment in which imposition is uncertain. The expected value of the reward or sanction is kept constant across environments to focus simply on the effect of uncertainty about imposition. Uncertainty does not change behavior in a significant way, either in the level of cooperation or the willingness of individuals to impose rewards or sanctions.     

United Nations Sanctions on North Korea's Luxury Goods Imports: Impact and Implications

This article examines the impacts of UN Security Council sanctions on North Korea's banned luxury goods imports from 2004 to 2017 by investigating the bilateral trade flows between North Korea and its 71 trading partner countries. This analysis provides some evidence that the sanctions were effective only for those countries that implemented the sanctions. Overall, it is difficult to conclude that United Nations Resolution 1718, which was mainly targeted to ban luxury goods exports to North Korea, was effective in curtailing North Korea's import of luxury goods for the time period from 2006 to 2007. The article argues that the lack of a clearly defined list of luxury goods and the lack of enforcement are important reasons for the ineffectiveness of the sanctions.     

Quantitative monetary policies and the portfolio composition of commercial banks

In this paper two quantitative monetary policy instruments imposed on commercial banks, i.e., a loan ceiling and an investment coefficient are analysed. The loan policy imposes a ceiling on the amount lent to the private sector; an investment coefficient imposes a floor on credits granted to the government. Both instruments facilitate, through different channels, the finance of government deficits. For the two instruments two scenario's are contrasted: a moral suasion and an imperative policy scheme. The first policy is pursued if no sanctions are imposed by the central bank; the second scheme applies if such sanctions are part of the policy.     

Sanctions for repeat offenders: a question of wealth?

In a two‐period standard law‐enforcement model, individuals observe or break the law. In addition, individuals may offend accidentally. When sanctions are limited by individual wealth constraints, the government chooses appropriate sanctions for first and repeat offenders and the level of monitoring. We assume a welfare‐oriented government and derive subgame‐perfect equilibria for constant, increasing and decreasing sanctions depending on the individual wealth level.     

The strategy of trade sanctions in international environmental agreements

This paper analyzes the links between policies aimed at supplying a global public good and international trade in segmented markets. I find that the credible threat to impose trade sanctions may be capable of sustaining full cooperation in the supply of the public good, provided the sanctions are accompanied by a minimum participation clause which serves to coordinate government behavior. In equilibrium, trade is not restricted. But if the threat to impose sanctions were not allowed by the rules of the game, supply of the public good would be Pareto-inefficient.     

The impacts of economic sanctions on exchange rate volatility

This research empirically analyzes the impact of various instruments of economic sanctions on official exchange rate volatility by employing data from a panel of 23 target countries covering the period 1996–2015 and using the Least Squares Dummy Variable Corrected (LSDVC) model. Our findings suggest that economic sanctions do significantly influence the target countries’ exchange rate volatility. Specifically, we are able to see different sanction present its different effects on exchange rate volatility. Furthermore, the robustness evidence of the eliminating country as Iran, eliminating variable of political ideology, intercepting time period, cross-sectional regression analysis, using real exchange rate volatility as proxy variable and a new sanctions database, are basically consistent with the previous finding. Overall, our empirical findings offer implications for those sanctioned countries about how to stabilize their exchange rate when facing sanctions.     

The Interaction of Legal and Social Norm Enforcement

Although legal sanctions are often nondeterrent, we frequently observe compliance with “mild laws.” A possible explanation is that the incentives to comply are shaped not only by legal, but also by social sanctions. This paper employs a novel experimental approach to study the link between legal and social norm enforcement. We analyze whether the two institutions are complements or substitutes. Our results show that legal sanctions partially crowd out social norm enforcement. Mild laws nevertheless give scope for a potentially large, positive welfare effect, as a higher level of compliance is achieved at lower social enforcement costs.