The Effect of Macroeconomic Variables on Pro Poor Growth in Iran

Poverty reduction is one of the main goals of policies pursued by governments. At the same time, economic growth and a strong belief in growth along with justice have always been of interest to policymakers. In this regard, the concept of pro poor growth focuses on the interaction between three elements: growth, poverty and inequality. On the other hand, pro poor growth is affected by several factors including macroeconomic variables. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of macroeconomic variables including government expenditures, transfers, liquidity, openness, oil revenue and external debt on pro poor growth during the period of 1982-2015. For this aim, first, we calculate pro poor growth index and then by using the time series data of desired macroeconomic variables and by ARDL model we estimate that relationship. The results show that all macroeconomic variables, except transfers and openness, have a negative and significant effect. In other words, by increasing liquidity, external debt, oil revenues and government expenditure, the share of poor people from economic growth will be less than the rich. Therefore, it is suggested that the government should change the path of economic growth by improving infrastructure and increasing social spending in the field of education and health, as well as directing liquidity towards productive and employment activities and allocating oil revenues to improve the infrastructures so the benefits of the poor will be more than the rich from economic growth, and the goal of reducing poverty and inequality would be achieved. Also, in spite of the positive effect of transfers and the openness of the economy on pro poor growth, it is suggested that the accurate identification of poor people and the targeting of subsidies, as well as the removal of barriers of free trade and membership of the WTO, along with the establishment of appropriate infrastructures and institutions, will increase the effectiveness of these macroeconomic variables.