A Spatial Analysis of Poverty in Muslim Countries

A key issue for many countries and even for internationalorganizations including the world bank and the unitednations is how to attack poverty. in many countries of theworld, millions of people are hungry, lacking shelter andclothing, sick and uncared for, illiterate and not schooled.these, all cause to reduce efficiency and productivity of labor,and hence decrease income. also, being in a geographicalregion in which there are poor countries is itself a factor ofpoverty. in fact, there is a poverty trap in such regions. that is,being poor and being in a poor region are factors which lead tolonger and deeper poverty.many muslim and arab countries are classified as lowincome countries and they are also contiguous to other lowincome ones. studying poverty in these countries is necessaryand can be helpful for deciding about both domestic andcommon regional polices for them. therefore, this studyfocuses on poverty in arab and muslim nations, and analyzesthis subject through spatial econometric techniques, becausespatial econometrics is a suitable method for considering spatialand geographical effects. countries under study are clustered inaccordance ofboth income poverty indices.