CAUSES OF ECONOMIC STAGNATIONS FROM THE VIEWS OF IRANIAN BANKERS: IS THE GLOBAL SANCTION A MAJOR FACTOR?

Farrokh Safavi
Western Washington University
Tehran University
ABSTRACT
In a recent banking conference in Tehran, Iran, where some 800 banking executives
attended, a survey of bankers’ perceptions of the causes of economic stagnation was conducted by
the author, who was also a keynote speaker at the conference. The 225 participants who
responded to the survey rated nine factors relating to the decline of the Iranian economy, among
them, global sanctions on banking operations. A test of hypotheses for all nine factors suggests
that the perceptions of the Iranian bankers are significant at α=5% on the impact of all nine
factors on the stagnation of the Iranian economy. The global sanctions factor was perceived to be
of lesser importance, as the bankers believed that a better management of the economy by the
government would have circumvented the impact of the sanctions.