Borghan Nezami in a video from Prince Reza Pahlavi's office: the rial's collapse has driven households to the dollar

Prince Reza Pahlavi's media office on Wednesday, 14 October 2026, released a new two-minute video in which Borghan Nezami, an economist and one of the authors of the Iran Prosperity Project, explains why Iranian households have turned to the dollar to preserve the value of their assets. The video is the second part of his explanations this week on inflation and the rial's collapse.

Introducing the video, the Prince's office wrote that the continuing fall in the rial's value has affected not only household savings but also everyday transactions and rental contracts. According to Borghan Nezami, severe and unpredictable inflation makes it hard to plan future payments: when no one knows what today's money will be worth in a few months, they can neither budget for next year's rent nor plan for major living expenses; for this reason, households are replacing the rial with the dollar.

The rial's collapse and daily life

The video follows a message in which Prince Reza Pahlavi called inflation a "hidden tax" and in whose first video Borghan Nezami described how it works: a tax that the Islamic Republic, without passing any law for it, takes from people's pockets by cutting their purchasing power. Taking refuge in the dollar is the other side of the same coin; when the national currency no longer plays the role of a "store of value", people flee from it to protect the fruits of their labour.

These explanations come as Iran's economy shrinks under the pressure of war, sanctions and a naval blockade. The International Monetary Fund has forecast that Iran's economy will shrink by 7.6 percent this year, and the Islamic Republic's crude oil exports have fallen to zero. Citizens are meanwhile reporting electricity bills and living costs rising several-fold.

The Iran Prosperity Project and the national currency

The Iran Prosperity Project, which with Prince Reza Pahlavi's backing prepares expert programmes for the transition period, sees restoring stability to the national currency and bringing inflation under control as among the foundations of rebuilding Iran's economy after the Islamic Republic. The project's series of short videos tries to explain people's everyday economic problems in simple language and to show their root in the authorities' policies.

According to Borghan Nezami, unpredictable inflation has made planning impossible and driven households to the dollar to preserve their assets.