The Effect of Monetary Policy on the Income Distribution in Urban and Rural Areas of Iran

Improving the distribution of income is one of the main goals of governments in economic policy, regardless of the orientation of different systems. The purpose of this study is to investigate the distributive effects of monetary policy on income distribution in urban and rural areas of Iran. In this regard, the values of macroeconomic variables during the period of 1959-2014 and the household budget data over the period of 1997-2014 were used. The monetary policy was considered in three scenarios, including the increase in facilities granted to the private sector, the decrease in the reserve requirement ratio and decrease in the excess reserves ratio. The results showed that expansionary monetary policy improves the distribution of income in the short run, but in the long run it worsens the distribution of income due to its inflationary effect. An increase in facilities granted in the short term reduces the Gini coefficient in urban and rural areas, and whole country. However, it increases the Gini coefficients in all three sections in the long run. Reducing the reserve requirement ratio in the short run reduces Gini coefficients, but it does not change the whole Gini coefficient in the long run, but it increases the Gini coefficients in urban and rural areas. The effect of reducing excess reserves ratio is similar to that of reducing reserve requirement ratio.