Spatial causality between migration, income inequality and poverty in Iranian cities

Migration is one of the main drivers of population changes and has many positive and negative effects in short and long term, and these impacts change the social and economic structure within the migrant areas. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between net migration, income inequality and poverty in Iran. In this study, spatial causality method was used to consider the spatial characteristics of variables. The statistical population includes all the cities of Iran during the period 2006-2008. The results of this study show that the causality between net migration and income inequality is unilateral, from net migration to income inequality. Also, estimation of income inequality model by using spatial econometric method shows that the relationship between net migration and income inequality is inverse and significant. In other words, migration increases income inequality in origin cities and reduces income inequality in destination cities. The result of the spatial causality test between net migration and poverty shows that there is no causal relationship between the two variables at the study period.