Spatial inequalities political-economic power: A new insight into Iran’s political economy

The economic literature has long conceptualized the terms of absolute and comparative advantage, and so the competitive advantage theory has been introduced for explaining the regional inequalities in recent decades. However, the results of previous studies have not been able to indicate caused factors of the regional inequalities in Iran. In other words, the above three advantages cannot explain the differences in the levels of development in Iran’s regions. For this reason, the present paper doesn’t try to evaluate regional imbalances with the economic variables and advantages, but it tries to focus on economic power crystallized in political power. This study examines the distribution of Political-Economic Power Advantage (PEPA) among the regions of Iran during the period of 2012-2019. In this regard, it depicts the power imbalances between the provinces of Iran based on the budget of institutions and their officials as well. The results show that PEPA is unevenly distributed among the provinces of Iran. Based on the government’s centralized and comprehensive dominance over the budget, the inequality of political-economic power among the provinces of Iran can be considered as a factor for the unbalanced regional development.