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Spatial inequalities and income and capital gaps between different areas of society are currently considered one of the most significant barriers to sustainable development. Disparities between disadvantaged regions (border or non-border) and developed regions, as well as urban-rural gaps, are the most important signs of spatial inequalities. This paper attempts to study the degree of integration or disparity between urban and rural areas in Iran over the past four decades using a secondary analysis method. Four variables will be analyzed: population distribution, dominant economic and production sectors, poverty levels and distribution, and income and expenditure gaps. Evaluation of the spatial planning system’s performance in the country reveals a sectoral and non-planning approach with an emphasis on centralization and urbanization, which has exacerbated inequalities and disparities between peripheral and central regions, as well as between urban and rural areas. The country has experienced rapid, unplanned, and sometimes uneven urbanization, to the detriment of the sustainability and population balance in small urban areas and rural ones, which has not necessarily been accompanied by balanced regional development. Large cities have attracted a labor force to their peripheries, leading to a life of poverty in marginal and rural areas. While absolute poverty has decreased, rural populations, especially in disadvantaged areas, continue to bear the brunt of poverty. Income and expenditure indicators have also favored urban dwellers. Overall, macro-level data in the country indicates the existence of spatial divisions. However, wherever urban-rural linkages have been established and strengthened, regional and urban-rural disparities have decreased.
 

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The aim of this paper is to investigate empirically the effects of monetary policy on poverty and income distribution in Iran using the data over the period 1976-2005. Monetary policy is one of the most potent instruments for managing the economy. There is a useful question to ask if the monetary policy is used as an instrument to reduce poverty. Most of the existing literature on monetary policy and poverty focuses on the short run. Monetary policy affects most of the macroeconomic variables such as output, unemployment, and inflation. Moreover, anticipated inflation and unanticipated inflation redistribute differently income from creditors to debtors. If poverty and inequality respond to these macroeconomic variables, monetary policy affects the well-being of the poor. The findings of this study show that monetary policy cannot be used as a poverty alleviation policy in Iran, since the expansionary monetary policy followed commonly by expansionary fiscal policy results in a rise in budget deficits. This policy increases the aggregate demand for all the goods and services in the economy resulting in higher inflation. Furthermore, there is no significant link between monetary policy and investment through interest rate. Consequently, monetary policy has no supply side effects in the economy and just it increases inflation rate. As a result of expansionary monetary policy, the poor would find its real income being gradually eroded by the growth in money supply, and hence the possibility of running into poverty.

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One of the most important stages of planning process (in all levels) is the evaluation of plans and programs. This process helps to improve plans, decision making and the possibility and reality of plans. Evolution can be accounted as an important factor in modifying the weak points in development plans and increasing the monitoring process. Rural development planning has recently encountered serious challenges such as: employment, participation of local peoples, increase of rural products, poverty alleviation, empowering individuals and trying to decrease regional disparities between the rural and urban areas. In Iran, various governmental organizations in rural areas have been active after the land reform and all of them tried to achieve their special goals. Social welfare organization is one of the most important organizations among them. This organization with its rural social welfare complex provides services to the rural residents. The present research attempted to study a rural welfare complex as a governmental organization and evaluate its role in rural development and social welfare of all villagers, specially the target groups. Therefore, the rural welfare complexes of Sojas, Karasf and Garmab in Khodabandeh suburb were studied using retrospective panel method and through measuring changes in time during T1 (before under coverage) and T2 (after under coverage). The analysis of the social- cultural and economic indicators showed that the function of these complexes are significant in the social affairs of the villagers and ensuring their basic need's compared with other factors α =%5.

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Casual relationship between financial developments and economic growth is one of the striking empirical macroeconomic relationships. Following the development of financial issues, our attention turns from economic growth to another issue of economic welfare. In this study, we try to examine the relationship between financial developments, economic growth, poverty and inequality in OPEC countries. The simulation of the models and statistical inferences, in this study, are based on the static and dynamic panel data approach. The empirical models are estimated by using GMM estimators, fixed effects and random effects using the data between 1990 and 2004. The results of this study show that financial developments through its effect on economic growth can mainly contribute poverty alleviation and inequality reduction in these countries.

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Considering changes in economic conditions and global priorities in the last decade, development objectives such as poverty reduction and income distribution were typically cast in terms of economic growth. Therefore, poverty reduction through rural development was at the center of government development plan. The objective of this study is to analyze the impact of government spending on the rural economic development. The development indicators included in the model comprise agricultural production, non-farm employment and poverty reduction. To this end, the elasticity of the above indicators is estimated with respect to rural infrastructures such as education, transportation, telecommunication and electricity capacity and then linkage between rural infrastructures and government spending are identified. A system of simultaneous equations approach is used to model and estimate the equations using the data over the period 1981-2005. Results of estimate indicate that government spending have positive and significant impact on the poverty reduction and non-farm employment.

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     This article examines the poverty rates for urban and rural areas of Kermanshah and the entire country using a Linear Expenditure System (LES) and Iterative Seemingly Unrelated Regression (ISUR) method during 1995-2007. Results indicate that poverty in rural and urban areas over the years in this province has an upturn trend. The findings also suggest that in rural and urban areas of Kermanshah, the group "foods" have biggest share of the poverty line. In rural areas of the country group "foods" have also the biggest share of the poverty line, but the largest share in country's urban areas belongs to group of "Housing and fuel". About elasticity the results show that in both urban and rural areas the group "other" and "appliances and furniture" are luxury.

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This study examines the relationship between financial sector development and poverty reduction in the Iranian economy during 1973-2007. To explore a long-term relationship between variables, Bounds Testing Approach of Pesaran and others (2001) was used and to investigate the interface and causality between financial sector development and poverty reduction Dolado and Lutkepohl’s approach and causalty test (1996) was applied. In this paper for showing financial development, three alternative indicators and for representing poverty  the cost of private consumption per capita are used. Results from this study indicate a long-term relationship between variables in the model. Dolado and Lutkepohl causality test results also show that financial development is not effective in poverty reduction .

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Forced labor for children and their employment in the labor market when they should grow and develop skills for their future life will cause them serious harms which can in turn result in negative consequences for their whole life. One of the major reasons for child labor is the poverty of the family. It is believed that if poverty is removed, child labor will be naturally terminated as a result. Many countries see poverty eradication as part of their responsibilities and in this regard they determine poverty line and try to measure the child and his family life as a basis in their analyses. If the line is taken to be high, based on a cause and effect relationship the number of child labor cases will be low and if poverty line is taken to be low, the number of child labor cases will be high. These countries adopt different approaches to determine poverty line and there is no agreement among scholars on its nature and scope. Therefore, in practice, some set high standards while some others set low standards for determining poverty line and this has a direct effect on how much support governments provide for the low-income families. To alleviate poverty through Zakat, Muslim jurists also set a poverty line. As with others, there is no agreement among Muslim jurists regarding poverty line either. Some take it to be high while others take it to be low and this again will have a direct impact on how child labor issue should be resolved in Muslim countries. This study aims at comparatively investigating the issue of poverty line from different jurisprudential perspectives and how different perspectives can influence the way child labor can be looked at. It is also emphasized that determining poverty line as the sufficiency line by Muslim rulers is a much more effective way in preventing child labor in comparison to other ways, since it considers an important factor which is the status of the people. In this paper, first, some preliminary issues such as vulnerability of children and determining poverty line by rulers will be discussed. Then, the article will elaborate on different poverty lines from Islamic Shariah perspective and their relationship with other conventional poverty lines. Finally, the article will argue that sufficiency basis for determining poverty line from Islamic point of view is the most effective one in preventing child labor.

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The measurement of multidimensional poverty in 22 districts of Tehran is the main goal of this research. Studying human deprivation regarding basic needs i.e. health, nutrition, education and political freedom seems essential due to existing shortcomings of income-based poverty measurement approach. Here, we measure multidimensional poverty in terms of four attributes (income, housing, education and public health) using information theory approach developed by Maasoumi and Logo(2006) model. First, we calculate single-dimensional poverty based on each attribute. Then, according to difference in levels of substitutability among attributes we measure the absolute poverty using aggregate poverty line approach. The results show that the poorest districts of Tehran are district 19 in terms of income approach and districts 19 and 17 in terms of education and housing, respectively. The worst situation regarding public health belongs to district 16. The highest and the lowest multidimensional poverty rate were observed in districts 4 and 1 respectively. Furthermore, if substitution coefficient among attributes increases, then the multidimensional poverty rate will decrease. About 63 percent of Tehran population is of relative deprivation.

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One of the important indexes of sustainable rural development is poverty. Fighting against poverty is a necessity in moving towards development. In post revolutionary Iran, in spite of all attempts to eradicate poverty, it still remains in many villages; and poverty alleviation programs could not find the main roots of it. The poverty of sample families was investigated considering the poverty of calorie consumption. To gather the necessary data for the research, the sample families of villages were selected using stratification random sampling. Relationships were analyzed with SPSS, and the tests included Pearson and Chi-square correlation tests. Arc GIS was used to produce the maps. Based on the obtained results, economical factors are more influential in forming poverty than social factors. Therefore, in codification of programs for rural poverty alleviation in this region, we should take into account both economical and social factors.

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The high cost of health care services indicates that the households are mainly responsible for the financial burden of their treatment rather than health insurance companies, and the policy holders often bear the catastrophic expenditure that might drive them below the poverty line. According to the Fourth development plan Act of Islamic Republic of Iran, Out of Pocket Payment (OOP) of households should not exceed 30% of their total health expenditure. This study uses household micro data provided by income-expenditures household survey in order to consider the impact of health care expenditure on the households’ poverty. The findings show that increases in the health care expenditure have led poverty to increase from 1 to 4 percent in different urban and rural areas during the period of study. According to our calculation, if OOP decreases to 30 % of total health care expenditure, then the share of population under poverty line will decrease to 2% of whole population.

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This study investigates the effects of rising food price on poverty and rate of vulnerability of the Iranian rural households. Applying the rural households’ data in 2012, first the compensated price elasticities are calculated by a Quadratic Almost Ideal demand system and then the effect of simultaneous increases in world food prices on welfare of rural households is studied in order to compute the vulnerability index and poverty variations. Results show that after rising food prices, the households’ welfare significantly gets worse, so that the corresponding compensated variation equals to 530.78 thousand Iranian Rials, which accounts for 6.28% of mean monthly income of the rural households. This limit defines the vulnerability index. Based on the computed poverty line, i.e. 2772.71 thousand Iranian Rials, over 49% of the households spend less for food. In other words, they suffer from food poverty. The results also show that nearly 14 percent (about 2764 households) has been added to the share of poor households because of rising food prices. The findings of this study can be used to design economic policies in order to protection of vulnerable groups, food security and social welfare.
 

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Poverty causes human distress, wandering of the mind and provision of sorrow. The leaders of UN member states were committed in the third millennium that the number of the poor should be reduced by half up to 2015. However, since there is a close relationship between the black economy and poverty in the Iranian economy, which has a growing trend, this shows the importance of identifying the factors effecting on the creation of black markets in urban areas on creating poverty. So the first step in designing and implementing new programs to reduce poverty is to review these offices. This study analyzes the effects of the black economy in rural and urban areas on poverty by using regression model (VAR). using this model, the variables of per capita income, unemployment, tax on income, direct tax burden, the degree of openness of the economy and inflation as the factors, which cause the black economy were studied for the years 1984-2007. The results showed that, in both the rural and urban areas, the per capita income variable has the most influence on poverty. This shows that if the policy makers want to improve and irradiate the poverty in urban or rural areas, correct changes in the per capita income variable with all accessories and institutional and distributation arrangements can be usefull.    

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This study measures the children's poverty rate in Tehran (people under the age of 18) and identifies the most effective factors on children poverty in 2011. By using a sample of 24000 children under age of 18 extracted from "Tehran's Justice Measurement Research Project", first, the children's poverty headcount was calculated in terms of shelter and nutrition. Then, the effects of variables such as education, employment, gender and age of household's head, the addicts and the disabled in household, and geographic location on child poverty were examined by estimating a logit model. The results showed that the highest rate of shelter poverty of children under 18 is observed among the children of south of Tehran (53%), district 19 (61%) and district 17 (58%), respectively. Malnutrition and food insecurity exist in all districts of Tehran. The highest food insecurity risk belongs to districts 17, 18 and 19 and the Southern Tehran. About 25.3 percent of the children in Tehran, 32.1 percent of children in the Southern Tehran and 37.6 percent of children in district 18 are exposed to risk of food insecurity. The presence of addicts and disabled in the household, educational deprivation of head of household and habitation in south of Tehran are factors affecting children poverty. In addition, female-headed households cause food insecurity. 

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The implementation of any economic policy that has expansionary effects requires relatively stable economic conditions. Under such conditions it is expected that potential predictable effects of such policy implementation on welfare of households, especially low income households could be evaluated. The economic context of poverty in the Iranian economy and the ineffectiveness of supportive institutions in particular circumstances make the effects of economic policies on low-income households widespread. In some cases, these effects are so broad that policy-makers are forced to leave or select the opposite course of that policy. Under these conditions, analyzes that illustrate the effectiveness path of policy help the policy-maker to have a clearer picture of the probable consequences of a policy. The main aim of this article is to analyze quantitatively the effects of the recent subsidy targeting policy on the welfare index (cost of living index) in different deciles of urban and rural households using social accounting matrix (SAM) approach. For this purpose two updated social accounting matrices for the years 2009 and 2011 have been used. Both matrices include 40 economic sectors. Comparing the cost of living index, we find that welfare vulnerability of households has decreased in general, however the magnitude of welfare reduction differs between rural and urban households among income deciles. Our findings reveal that the cost of living index of rural households is more than the corresponding urban households. The vulnerability in the natural gas distribution sector has tripled in urban areas in 2011and in rural areas it is nearly four times higher than 2009 level. We also find that every 100-unit increase in cost of electricity will potentially increase welfare index of urban and rural household by 34 and 46 units, respectively. From the distribution viewpoint, the welfare loss is lower for high-income deciles. In addition, our findings show that the degree of vulnerability in middle income groups in majority of sectors is less than the other income groups. The structural path of changes shows that subsidy targeting has created wide complexity and entanglement in the path of the effectiveness of fuel price changes on price indices, especially on the household living cost index. Accordingly, before implementing subsidy targeting scheme, the increase in fuel prices was influencing the household cost index in five ways, while after targeting the increase in fuel prices affected it through the twenty different paths. 

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Poverty decomposition provides useful information about the factors affecting poverty and helps the politicians to choose suitable poverty reduction policies. In this context, sectoral decomposition (Ravallion-Huppi, 1991) and growth–­equality decomposition (Datte- Ravallion, 1992) are the most widely used methods for poverty decomposition. But the ambiguous elements (such as residual and interaction terms) existing in these methods resulted in developing a new decomposition method by Fujii (2014). His decomposition method is residual-free and has some desirable properties including time-reversion consistency, and sub-period additivity. In the present study, following Fujii (2014) and using Iran’s rural and urban household expenditure and income data, the poverty is decomposed into six components: population shift (PS), within-region redistribution (WR), between-region redistribution (BR), nominal growth (NG), inflation (IF), and methodological change (MC). The results show that population shift (PS), within-region redistribution (WR) and inflation components explain the highest portion of the poverty changes in the urban and rural areas. Based on the results, the pro-poor growth policies and immigration-reducing policies are recommended for reducing rural poverty, while the growth-oriented policies with redistribution are recommended for decreasing urban areas.  In all periods, inflation is the main poverty-increasing factor in both urban and rural areas; therefore, controlling inflation can reduce poverty rates.

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Poverty reduction and households’ welfare growth have become major issues in economic development in the recent years, so that poverty alleviation and individual’s welfare improvement are necessary conditions for economic growth. Evidently, fighting poverty programs need to efficiency in policy-making, proper method of implementation of policies, and identification of dimensions, causes and consequences of poverty. Thus, examining the poverty situation in each society is the first step in planning for fighting poverty and social exclusion. In this study, the poverty line of Iran's urban households is computed by using the theory of relative habit linear expenditure system (RHLES) in a linear expenditure system (LES). Data are extracted from Households Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) in urban areas for 8 commodity-groups over the period 1989-2015, which five economic, cultural, and social development plans have been implemented.  In addition, the poverty intensity is examined in urban areas using indices of poverty measurement. The results of study show that although the poverty line (minimum subsistence expenditure) in Iran's urban households goes up over time, but the intensity and extent of poverty go down. Thus, the government policies for the reduction of relative poverty in urban areas have been successful. According to findings, the minimum subsistence expenditure was 80296387 Rial in real terms (2011=100) in 1989, as the first year of the first 5-year development plan. It reached to 9677574 Rial in 2015 (the last year of the fifth 5-year development plan). In other words, it recorded a growth rate of 0.7 percent, on average, during the five development plans. However, the intensity and extent of poverty have experienced decreasing trends during 1989-2015. In 2015, the indicators of head-count ratio, poverty gap and Foster, Greer and Thorbecke (FGT) reached their minimum levels by 31.08, 10.9 and 4.3, respectively. The results confirm relative improvement in the subsistence level of urban households.

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One of the reasons for the failure of many poverty and inequality reduction programs in developing countries is due to the dominant income-based measurement approach. Therefore, the main cause of poverty is not only a consequence of lack of income, but is also the result of the deprivation of capabilities to get out of poverty. The aim of this study is zoning the incidence and intensity of multidimensional poverty in Iran rural and urban areas and comparing with the results of income per capita indicator classification. The results show that the incidence and intensity of poverty in Iran is respectively 12.3% and 30.6%. Poverty is more prevalent in rural areas compared to urban areas with about 21.4% of the rural households considered poor compared to 5.86% of urban households. The poorest province is Sistan and Baluchestan (S&B) and there are more poorer households in the southeastern provinces. Comparing the classification results of the multidimensional poverty index (MPI) and income per capita indicator displays low overlap. Given the importance of identifying the most vulnerable households in Iran, the MPI seem to offers more valuable and different information to the policy makers, regardless of the problems in measuring the households' income and wealth.

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As an assessment method of the water resources, Water Poverty Index (WPI) has become an available tool in water resources management. In particular, Agricultural Water Poverty Index (AWPI) is an assessment tool for agricultural water in rural areas. During the past decades, Mahidasht Basin in Kermanshah Province has been declared by water policy makers as “forbidden” basin in terms of water exploitation. Therefore, effective water resource management in the basin is deemed important. AWPI provides an appropriate tool in managing water resources more effectively. AWPI is an extension of Water Poverty Index (WPI) with five components including resources, access, use, capacity, and environment. This study sought to investigate the Agricultural Water Poverty Index in Mahidasht Basin in Kermanshah Province. Results revealed that Mahidasht Basin is faced with severe Agricultural Water Poverty (AWP= 49.06). Moreover, although farmers had limited water resources (R= 27.4) but these limited resources were highly accessible (A= 74.9). The result of this study has practical implications for water policy makers in Kermanshah Province. For example, agricultural policy makers can use the result of this study to devise better policies to alleviate agricultural water poverty in Mahidasht Basin where it is faced with water crisis.