Over the last century, global poverty has largely been viewed as a technical problem that merely requires the right "expert" solutions. Yet all too often, experts recommend solutions that fix immediate problems without addressing the systemic political factors that created them in the first...

Intro -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Preface to the Paperback Edition -- Prologue: The Quest -- I - Why Growth Matters -- 1 - To Help the Poor -- Intermezzo: In Search of a River -- II - Panaceas That Failed -- 2 - Aid for Investment -- Intermezzo: Parmila -- 3 - Solow's Surprise: Investment...

Structural adjustment, as measured by the number of adjustment loans from the IMF and World Bank, reduces the growth elasticity of poverty reduction. Growth does reduce poverty, but I find no evidence for a direct effect of structural adjustment on growth. Instead, the poor benefit less from...