[Poverty measurement in Iran during 1989-2004]

Perhaps one of the most troublesome dilemmas in economics is why some people remain very poor for long periods of time, and why poverty persists across generations. Poverty alleviations and satisfying minimum requirements of a decent living standard have come to the focus of the governments, international agencies, as well as nongovernmental organizations. Different administrations in Iran, inspired by the Islamic teachings on poverty eradication, implemented numerous measures to combat poverty. In this regard, in addition to the direct measures taken to combat poverty, various policies implemented within different Five-Year Development Plans. In spite of all the efforts made to alleviate poverty, however, it seems that the goals have not been achieved and still poverty is a source of concern among the policy makers. In order to re-launch fresh policies to combat poverty, we have to have a comprehensive account of the results of the implemented policies. In this paper we provide an assessment of poverty changes that shows how incidence and intensity of poverty have been developed following more than two decades of poverty alleviation policy. This article examines the changes in the incidence and intensity of poverty in Iran between 1989 and 2004 based on Household Income and Expenditure Surveys. To this end, using minimum basic needs approach; absolute poverty lines for urban and rural areas have been estimated. The cost of minimum food requirements based on 2000 kcal. per day per adult is estimated. Accordingly. by application of Orshansky method the cost of minimum non-food requirements has been calculated. Then using Foster et al. [1984] indices, different poverty measures have been estimated. The findings indicate that in the most part of the time period of the study the rural poverty, in terms of incidence and intensity has been higher and more severe than the respected figures for the urban poverty. Moreover, the results show that the general trends of poverty in both rural and urban areas have been declining during the same time period

[Methods of equivalence scales: an application for Iran]

Households differ in size, age composition, educational level and other characteristics. Generally, we do expect households with different characteristics to have different expenditure patterns. In order to calculate the impact of household, characteristics on their minimum requirements and household's demand, equivalent scale is introduced. Household equivalence scales provide an economic way of incorporating the impact of demographic change into models for the allocation of aggregate consumer expenditure. they are also useful in welfare economics for comparing levels of welfare among households with different demographic characteristics. In this paper, different common approaches to equivalent scales are introduced. Jorgenson-Slesnick model is one of the most famous and useful methods to measure different aspects of households' characteristics. In this paper, we have applied this method to calculate household equivalent scale for different demographic characteristics in compare with the reference household that is an urban household consists of an adult couple. We used this scale to compare welfare of households with different characteristics. In this regard, data collected through Household Surveys for the period of 1984-2003 and the cross-section data of 2002 have been used. The results of this research can be used to compare wellbeing level as well as the minimum household expenditure requirements for different household types. The results are prerequisite for poverty and inequality measurement as well as for distributing government subsidies over the basic commodities according to the differences of the households' characteristics, including family size, urban and rural residential areas, educational level of the head of household, and the type of commodities that the households consume