Compilation of Petro Populism Index and Evaluation of Populist Policies on Iran's Economic Growth Using Synthetic Control Method (SCM)

Decreased growth and economic stagnation are among the consequences and costs of economic populism. Petro-populism is a phenomenon that appears in governments that rely on oil. Such governments try to attract the support of the masses by relying on oil income. Considering that symbols of populism have appeared in Iran in recent decades, two goals have been pursued in this research. First, based on the literature on populism, economic populism, and Petro-populism, eight indicators for oil populism have been proposed. The results of the calculations of the eight indicators for Iran during the period of 1978-2018 show that for the period of the ninth and tenth governments (2005-2013), the six suggested indicators of Petro-populism have the highest values. To calculate the general petro-populism index, the geometric mean of the above eight indices was proposed and calculated during the mentioned period. The findings of the research show that in 2009, this index has the highest value compared to the length of the studied period. After it became clear that the rule of economic populism was more obvious in Iran during the years 2005-2013, the synthetic control method was used to evaluate the populist policies on Iran's economic growth during the mentioned period. Iran was selected as the country under treatment or policy and 13 oil exporting countries as the control group. The results of the research show that the real and simulated trends of Iran's economic growth from 2005 onwards have a significant difference.