Standard measures of poverty may reveal nothing about whether the poorest of the poor are being lifted-up or left-behind, yet this is a widespread concern among policy makers and citizens. The paper assesses whether public spending on social protection benefits the poorest and hence lifts the...

Antipoverty policies assume that targeting poor households suffices in reaching poor individuals. We question this assumption. Our comprehensive assessment for sub-Saharan Africa reveals that undernourished women and children are spread widely across the household wealth and consumption...

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...