A new data set on national poverty lines is combined with new price data and almost 700 household surveys to estimate absolute poverty measures for the developing world. We find that 25% of the population lived in poverty in 2005, as judged by what "poverty" typically means in the world's...

Introduction -- Concept of social economy: past and present -- Economic liberalisation and social development -- Social consequences of economic policies -- Marginalisation of agriculture sector -- Social implications of political process -- Caste prejudices and human dignity -- Language,...