The structure, efficiency, and growth of production affect (and are affected by) the distribution of consumption. Poverty analysis has three tasks: (1) to define and describe poverty, (2) to understand its causes, and (3) to inform policy. This chapter outlines history of economic thought on...

How did we come to think that eliminating poverty is a legitimate goal for public policy? What policies emerged in the hope of attaining that goal? The last 200 years have witnessed a dramatic change in thinking about poverty. Mainstream economic thinking in the eighteenth century held that...