September 2006, No. 41

Character

	If anybody wanted to say something new with regard to economics, they should first understand what the past scholars had said in this regard. Such an understanding can only be reached through studying up-to-date books and papers on relevant subjects.
30 Years of Iran’s Economic Activities

It was the fall of 1980. I was member of board of directors of Isfahan provincial bank and official in charge of founding plan and budget department of the bank. Managing director of the bank, who was an old employee of Bank Saderat called Mr. Tabibian, was a citizen of Shahreza city. One day, the managing director told me that one of his relatives who held a doctorate degree in economics from the United States had come to Iran and since universities were closed, he was looking for a job. I told him that I would be happy to see him. The newcomer was Dr. Seyed Mohammad Tabibian. He came to the bank one or two days later and we met. During the first meeting, he was holding a string of beads in his hand and looked a solemn, committed and intelligent Muslim who had good command of economics and looked self-reliant. He had been excellent student of economics at Shiraz University during bachelor’s and master’s courses. He had been given a scholarship by the university to continue his studies in the United States. He had obtained his doctorate in economics from a creditable university and had left for Iran immediately after graduation just to serve his country and people. He clearly had a powerful personality and yearend to serve his nation. He immediately started to work with economic studies department of the bank across the province. This was how I came to know a man who played a major role in the economic scene of Iran over the next 25 years both with regard to educational and scientific activities, and in terms of executive posts he held. This introduction was the start of a long-lasting friendship during which Dr. Tabibian proved his scientific talent as well as a powerful personality.

By the end of the Iranian calendar year, 1360 (1981-82), Dr. Mohammad Taqi Banki, took charge of the then Plan and Budge Organization. He invited me to work with him on planning. At that time, Plan and Budget Organization was going through dire straits. Before Mr. Banki took charge, the organization had been closed down for a while. A group of experts had left the organization and another group had been fired or forced into retirement during the time when the organization was closed. The center of the country’s planning and the most important managerial headquarters of the government was in a mess. Most directors of executive bodies were inexperienced and knew nothing about planning and budgeting. They had no clear picture in mind of the status quo, resources and facilities available to them, goals and priorities, and rational allocation of resources. What had been done in the past and those who had done it, were negated. No alternative order had been established. Although, overall goals of the Islamic Republic of Iran had been announced, there were no clear objectives, plans as well as coherent policies which could be accepted by the new political system to run the country’s affairs.

Under those conditions when no planning system was in effect and inexperienced managers had taken charge of the country’s affairs as Cabinet ministers, governors, directors general and heads of various governmental offices, rebuilding planning system of the country, introducing managers to concepts of planning, availing of those concepts to set goals and adopt policies, drawing up plans and allocating limited resources were very important to realization of goals. Dr. Tabibian played a very salient role at that juncture to create theoretical and administrative order, at least, for planning and policymaking in the country and training directors and experts for the nascent system of the Islamic Republic of Iran. From this viewpoint, he greatly served the system as well as its directors and experts. Another critical field where Dr. Tabibian played a key role was triggering a long-lasting development in educating economics in Iran. Economics and management are complex but vital fields for successful and effective management of a society. Social affairs can be managed suitably and large-scale problems such as unemployment, poverty, economic growth and development can be solved only when prominent talents availing of advanced and complex knowledge of those fields are effectively present in managerial scenes of the country. Therefore, due to complexity of such fields, the best talents in the society should be attracted to such academic fields to help progress of the society by taking advantage of their creative minds and through scholarly command of such complex fields of knowledge. While in most advanced countries, top students study in those fields, unfortunately for Iran, the elite show less attention to these important and complex fields of study. Out of 500 or 1,000 top students accepted through mathematics and physics university admission exams, not even one of them chooses to study in economic and management fields. All of them are admitted in engineering and other scientific majors. Also, top students admitted through university admission examinations for high school graduates of experimental sciences, choose to study medicine. Lack of enthusiasm toward such fields and other important fields of humanities and social sciences is catastrophic for our society. Although, at present, there are top economists in the country, lack of enthusiasm among top high school graduates to continue studies in those fields, has caused theoretical and scientific capabilities of economic fields not to be proportionate to true status of those fields in the society. As a result, large-scale issues of the country are caught in the vortex of contradictory viewpoints, which are often not based on scholarly understanding and accurate solutions. The situation has persisted up to the present time.

To get out of this predicament, we had to encourage talented youth to study in those fields. Since changing mentality of high school elite to choose those courses for their bachelor’s degree studies seemed a remote possibility and, in addition, facilities for qualitative education of them was lacking on a large scale, a group of our friends, including Dr. Tabibian reached the conclusion that the way should be paved for top graduates of engineering and scientific majors to study in economics, planning and management. For this reason, between 1982 and 1983 and through support and endeavors of Dr. Mohammad Taqi Banki, the then chairman of Plan and Budget Organization, and at a time that universities were still closed and a procedure for approving master’s degree courses had not yet been introduced, a maser’s course of engineering economic and social systems was designed and approved by the High Council of the Cultural Revolution. Graduates of most master’s degree courses including engineering and scientific majors could have been drafted to continue studies in the said major. The master’s degree course of systems engineering was started at Isfahan University of Technology in 1984 and the first group of students was admitted. Economic major of that course was taught by Dr. Tabibian. The product of that course was such people as Dr. Masoud Nili, Dr. Hassan Dargahi, Dr. Mehdi Asali, and Mr. Saeed Reza Mo’meni. Although emigration of some of our friends including Dr. Tabibian to Tehran weakened that master’s degree course at Isfahan University of Technology, the same course or other courses with the same goals were introduced at the High Institute of Plan and Development Research in Tehran as of early 1990s and Dr. Tabibian trained a considerable number of talented youth during more than 12 courses at that institute in the field of economics and in cooperation in other colleagues. Both in Isfahan and at the institute, the goal was not only attracting intelligent youth to economics, but their quality education through taking advantage of the most up-do-date textbooks, which were taught in the best universities of the world, was also greatly emphasized.

In fact, the economics is result of endeavors of many scholars over the past two centuries who worked hard in all parts of the world. Exemplary and prominent talents have spent their lives on this field of human knowledge and produced a valuable treasure trove. Therefore, if anybody wanted to say something new with regard to economics, they should first understand what the past scholars had said in this regard. Such an understanding can only be reached through studying up-to-date books and papers on relevant subjects.

Dr. Tabibian is very serious and even bigoted about the value, complexity and depth of human knowledge in the field of economics. He loves it and keeps up-to-date through constant study. He tries to use the most recent books and papers and to introduce his students to the depth and accuracy of this field of knowledge. In addition, he takes advantage of complex economic principles and theories which he has understood correctly, to solve Iran’s economic problems. For this reason, multitude of students who have learnt economics from Dr. Tabibian both at Isfahan University of Technology and at the High Institute for Plan and Development Research in Tehran, have a good grasp of economics. Those who have remained in Iran have been very effective in their respective field of activity either at large-scale, sectoral or corporate levels. A remarkable number of his students have received scholarships from creditable universities of the world and are continuing their studies abroad. They have attested to quality of education that they had received in the field of economics in Iran through their excellent work at those universities. I hope that when they return, they would be able to bring about positive changes in the field of economic education and research. Iranian economy has witnessed positive development over the past two decades and we will see their outcomes in the future. A large part of those changes were result of endeavors made by the big economist of our country, Dr. Seyed Mohammad Tabibian.

In addition to changing economic education in the country, Dr. Tabibian has been a pioneer in the field of economic planning and policymaking too. He was instrumental in formulation of the First Economic Development Plan of the Islamic Republic of Iran during 1981-82, whose ratification by the Islamic Consultative Assembly was aborted due to wartime conditions of those years. He has played direct and indirect roles in drawing up the First Economic Development Plan and the Third Economic Development Plan and he was also in charge of implementing the Second Economic Development Plan. His involvement in policymaking and planning influenced his teaching and also, his persistent teaching and studies increased his scientific weight in practical fields.

Some analysts, quite mistakenly and unjustly, blame current economic problems such as inflation, unemployment and poverty on people like Dr. Tabibian who has been active in the field of economic policymaking and planning. They ignore several important points. Firstly, such problems may be the result of in attention to recommendations offered by people like Dr. Tabibian. His recommendations included the necessity of reducing budget deficit and instilling financial discipline in governments to control inflation, not paying subsidies on a general basis to all good sand services and instead paying purposeful subsidies through disbursing direct aid to poor people, phasing out state-run pricing and allocation systems1 which pave the way for economic rent seeking and also prevents correct interpretation of important and accurate signals that are sent by prices and which can be used for proper allocation of economic resources. Not complying with the said recommendations will give rise to problems, which cannot be blamed on those whose recommendations have gone unheeded.

The second point that is ignored by critics is that if people like Dr. Tabibian had not endeavored to make economic decisions more rational, the current situation could have been much worse. Preventing economic mess, as well as remarkable growth of agriculture, industry and infrastructural facilities during 1989-2004 can be considered a result of scholarly, honest and sincere efforts made by him and people like him who served their country through spending long hours on expert studies at their offices.

Finally, the third point which is overlooked by critics is that economic performance of any country is affected by other domains such as domestic policy, international relations and quality of management. Many factors outside the economic sphere such as instability in domestic policies, appointing managers without making sure about their professional qualifications, political support for rent seeking, disrupting judicial procedures or inefficiency of such procedures, as well as turmoil in international relations will cripple any economic system. I believe that it would be injustice and ingratitude to blame problems on those whose entire lives have been allocated to serve domestic economy and advance it in scientific aspects. Many years should pass and many things should happen before our society raises another person like Dr. Tabibian who is both intelligent and committed, scholar and pundit, and also loves his country and people. Good grounds should be provided; so that, he can serve the country and make his lasting mark on practical and scientific developments in a major field of knowledge which is known as economics. Of course, nobody is aware of absolute truth in any field and no scholar man can make such a claim, for this reason, scientists are always trying to refute past theories and come up with something new. Perhaps Dr. Tabibian has made mistakes in some fields, but this will neither reduce his scientific worth, nor the value of his constructive efforts. I, for my part, must say to my scholar fiend, “More power to your elbow. May Almighty God reward you because He is aware of everything.”

And a word about his retirement: I believe that retirement means nothing to him. As long as he is alive, he will continue to study, think, give his opinion, write and educate. This is but part of his very beginning and, from this viewpoint, retirement means nothing to him. But alas for an organization which deprives itself from his keen mind. I hope he will remain healthy and active and during many years to come, more talented youth will avail of his educations and more policymakers will benefit from his scholarly ideas; though his remarks may sometimes seem sharp and annoying.                

By: Dr. Ali-naqi Mashayekhi