Project at HIAS

The Socio‐Health and Environmental Impacts of Economic Sanctions (case of Iran and other selected countries)

Economic sanctions are frequently used as a foreign policy tool to pressure governments into changing their behavior. While intended to impose economic costs on target regimes, they often produce unintended consequences for the civilian population. During his three-month fellowship at HIAS, Mohammad Farzanegan will advance his research on the effects of sanctions on internal conflicts in Iran (in collaboration with Jerg Gutmann), with the goal of publishing in a peer-reviewed journal. He will also further develop a research project examining the moderating role of target countries’ quality of institutions in shaping the destructive effects of sanctions on political stability in a cross-country context. Moreover, he aims to extend his research on the effects of sanctions by considering their implications for quality of environment and public health. Another key objective of Farzanegan’s fellowship is to prepare an EU project proposal to establish a doctoral training network on the topic of economic sanctions, in collaboration with his tandem partners and other potential partners.

His Tandem Partners are Stefan Voigt, Professor for Law and Economics and Jerg Gutmann, Assitant Professor for Law and Economics at the University of Hamburg.

Biography

Mohammad Reza Farzanegan has been leading the Economics of the Middle East Research Group at the Center for Near and Middle Eastern Studies (CNMS), Philipps-Universität Marburg since 2015, where he holds a tenured professorship (W3) in the School of Business and Economics and serves as Deputy Managing Director of CNMS (2024-2026). Before that, he was Junior Professor (tenure track) in Economics of the Middle East at the same institution (2012-2015), Georg Forster Research Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation at ZEW Mannheim and TU Dresden (2010-2012), and a researcher in Environmental and Resource Economics at ZEW Mannheim (2009-2010). Earlier in his career, he completed his PhD (summa cum laude) at TU Dresden (2006-2009), served as an Economic Expert at the Tehran Stock Exchange Organization (2004-2005) and Ports & Shipping Organization in Iran (2001-2003), and earned his MSc in Energy Economics & Marketing from the University of Tehran (1999-2002) and BS in Theoretical Economics from Allameh Tabataba’i University (1995-1999). His work emphasizes political economy, development economics, and empirical institutional economics, with active involvement in international networks such as CESifo, ERF, and IIEA, alongside contributions to cultural and academic dialogues on the Middle East (especially with Iran) via leading DAAD/ Federal Foreign Office funded projects of Higher Education Dialogue with the Muslim World (2016-2018 & 2020-2022).

Mohammad Farzanegan’s research focuses on the political economy of sanctions, conflict, corruption, and natural resources, among other topics. His projects follow a theory-based, empirical approach, employing quantitative methods to identify causal effects. He draws on diverse data sources, including individual and firm-level surveys, as well as country-level macro data for time-series, cross-country, and panel analyses. He has published 80 peer-reviewed articles in international journals. His recent work has appeared in The Lancet, Review of Development Economics, Empirical Economics, Energy Economics, Defence & Peace Economics, and Constitutional Political Economy, among others. Farzanegan is the coordinating professor for the International Master of Science program in Economics of the Middle East (EMEA). He currently serves as Executive Secretary of the International Iranian Economic Association (IIEA) and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Economic Research Forum (ERF) in Egypt.

Farzanegan’s HIAS Fellowship is provided by the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg and the federal and state funds acquired by the University of Hamburg in the framework of its Excellence Strategy.