Relationship Between Socio-economic Development of the Cities of Kermanshah Province and the Government Budget During the Sixth Development Plan

The ultimate goal of all politicians and economic planners of countries is to achieve sustainable development. Reducing the development gap between regions and establishing justice between different regions of the country is considered as one of the major concerns of decision makers. Economic and political planners in our country have also tried for years to minimize the development gap between different regions in the center and provinces, however, the evidence shows very high regional imbalances in the country. Kermanshah province is considered as one of the important and strategic provinces of the country. Kermanshah province despite having a privileged and unique position hasn't been in a favorable position in terms development indicators due to some restrictions and deprivations caused by the lack of balanced development of the country, such as the highest unemployment rate for the past three decades and highest inflation rate in the country in recent years has belonged to this province. The present study ranks the cities of Kermanshah province in the early years (2017) and the final years (2021) of the Sixth Development Plan, in terms of the level of development using the numerical taxonomy method. The present study was conducted to investigate whether the government funds allocated to the cities of the province led to an improvement in their level of development during the Sixth Development Plan? And whether government policies on resource distribution have been effective or inefficient and have exacerbated unbalanced development. According to the results, all 14 cities in terms of degree of development are classified as deprived and highly deprived areas in all years under study. The degree of development of the cities of Kermanshah province in the early and final years of the Sixth Plan indicates that the position of the cities of the province has not differed significantly during the years of the Sixth Development Plan in terms of development rank (with the exception of Kangavar city). In other words, the government funds allocated to this province during the Sixth Plan did not lead to an improvement in the degree of development of the cities of this province.