"Can't get ahead for falling behind." The entrapment and powerlessness this phrase evokes applies as much to development policy caught in a vicious circle of vulnerability, crisis and reactive aid as it does to the lives of the very people aid policies are designed to benefit. We consider these...

Most of those Russian adults who feel that they are poor are not classified as such in the poverty statistics, and most of those who are classified as poor don't feel that way. We study the determinants of peoples' perceptions of their economic welfare in an unusually rich socioeconomic survey....