Estimation of poverty line and assessing the variation of poverty in rural areas of Isfahan province

In this study، first we estimated the poverty line of household and poverty indices in rural areas between1999 to 2004. Stochastic dominance test is applied to compare the extent of poverty in the beginning year and the end year of third- socio economic development plan of Iran. The most important feature of this technique is providing comparative comparison of poverty in two years or different period. The results show that during these years the rural poverty line based on reciprocal of engel’s coefficient method has been greater than other relative poverty lines. Poverty lines were increasing in rural areas based on all of measuring poverty methods. Poverty gap and poverty intensity has been alleviated in rural areas. Besides، by using the stochastic dominance test، variation of poverty was tested and the results show the decreasing of poverty in rural areas of Isfahan province during the studied period. This may indicate that the poverty alleviation policies in the third plan have been promising.