The embarrassing living conditions of more than one billion poor people in developing countries in combination with the increasing gap of living standards between the poor and the rich, has provided a strong motivation for development policy to change this situation. From its beginning, policy...

In this volume, world-renowned contributors, including Martin Ravallion, Michael Kremer and Robert Townsend, deal with the institutional characteristics of poverty resulting from the time pattern of aid, the nature of financial systems and the political economy of budgetary decisions. Going...