A Spatial Analysis of Poverty in Muslim Countries

A key issue for many countries and even for international organizations including "The World Bank" and "The United Nations" is how to attack poverty. In many countries of the world, millions of people are hungry, lacking shelter and clothing, 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 geographical region in which there are poor countries is itself a factor of poverty. In fact, there is a poverty trap in such regions. That is, being poor and being in a poor region are factors which lead to longer and deeper poverty. Many Muslim and Arab countries are classified as low income countries and they are also contiguous to other low income ones. Studying poverty in these countries is necessary and can be helpful for deciding about both domestic and common regional polices for them. Therefore, this study focuses on poverty in Arab and Muslim nations, and analyzes this subject through spatial econometric techniques, because spatial econometrics is a suitable method for considering spatial and geographical effects. Countries under study are clustered in accordance of both income poverty indices.