Factors affecting poverty in Fars province: Application of spatial econometric approach

The objective of this study was to investigate the factors affecting poverty and to determine poverty map of Fars Province urban areas using spatial econometrics approach. The dataset were obtained throughout 320 urban households participated in household expenditure survey of 2005. Moran’s I value for poverty was -0.2125, indicating negative spatial autocorrelation. Moran’s scattering graph also showed that most of townships and their neighbors may be placed into poverty subgroups of high-low and low-high. Results revealed that variables of family size, household head gender, percentage of household owning housing and type of employment have significant effects on poverty incidence. Results indicated that the spatial lag and error models have considerable improvement over OLS model.