The Effect of Divorce on Urban Housing Costs in Iran: A Spatial Autocorrelation Model

In addition to traditional factors, demographic changes also depend on factors such as marriage and divorce. Yet only a few researchers investigated the impact of divorce on housing costs. The aim of this paper is to estimate the effect of divorce on housing costs in Iran. Doing so, we have applied a fixed Panel Spatial Autocorrelation model using the data from a set of Iranian provinces over the period of 2006-2014. The results indicate that a one-percent point rise in divorce increases housing rental index by about 1.05% point directly and indirectly. The outcomes also show that household size has a negative and significant effect, but the per capita gross domestic product and the population have positive and significant effects on the housing rental index. On average, a one-percent point increase in the housing rental index of any provinces will increase the housing rental index in a province by about 0.34 percentage points.