Five ideas constitute the central message of this study. First, urban rickshaw pullers come from a very poor economic background consistent with the characteristics of chronic poverty. Second, rickshaw pulling provides a route of modest upward mobility for those among the rural chronically poor...

Attempts to understand the causes of chronic poverty have largely centred on the concept of the poverty trap. In this perspective, the main focus is on the paucity of initial wealth or endowments, which under certain plausible conditions can create a trap from which a poor person will find it...

Based on Amartya Sen's groundbreaking work on capabilities and functionings, static poverty measures have long used non-income indicators. In contrast, measures of poverty dynamics, including chronic poverty, have in general conceptualized poverty only in an income dimension. Hence, this paper...