The Economics of Poverty: History, Measurement, and Policy

by Martin Ravallion

There are fewer people living in extreme poverty in the world today than 30 years ago. While that is an achievement, continuing progress for poor people is far from assured. Inequalities in access to key resources threaten to stall growth and poverty reduction in many places. The world's poorest have made only a small absolute gain over those 30 years. Progress has been slow against relative poverty as judged by the standards of the country and time one lives in, and a great many people in the world's emerging middle class remain vulnerable to falling back into poverty.The Economics of Poverty reviews critically past and present debates on poverty, spanning both rich and poor countries. The book provides an accessible new synthesis of current economic thinking on key How is poverty measured? How much poverty is there? Why does poverty exist, and is it inevitable? What can be done to reduce poverty? Can it even be eliminated? The book does not assume that readers know economics already. Those new to the subject get a lot of help along the way in understanding its concepts and methods. Economics lives through its relevance to real world problems, and here the problem of poverty is both the central focus and a vehicle for learning.

Genres: Economics, Poverty, Nonfiction, History, Economic Development

736 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2016

Reviews

[Leman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very insightful and interesting. The explanation of general macroeconomic and microeconomic concepts are also given which makes the reading more comprehensible.

[Rob Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, what a trove of a book. Incredible overview of the intellectual history, modes of measurement, and policy responses to global poverty. Very focused on international policy, so not as relevant as would be wanted by some looking at domestic issues, but Ravallion gives an evenhanded, smart overview of all the major topics in international poverty here. Incredible book.

[Scott · Rating 2 out of 5]

At the micro-level, Martin Ravallion does a great job in describing and evaluating top-down poverty reduction programs based on redistribution run by international agencies, as expected from someone who has spent has career advocating and working with these programs.

At the macro-level, Martin Ravallion does a very poor job of evaluating the value of these programs and very unfairly characterizes individuals who advocate a more market based approach to poverty reduction, as there is overwhelming evidence market based approaches reduce absolute poverty to a make greater extent than the top down approaches aimed at redistribution he advocates.

The author ignores the fact, the majority of the fastest reduction in absolute poverty ever seen in the world, in China, was achieved prior to the Chinese government even starting up specific poverty reduction programs. The evidence overwhelming suggests large scale poverty reduction is achieved by economic growth and not redistribution, although most people would agree that a limited amount of redistribution can help a minority of people in the short run who do not directly benefit from economic growth.

He tends to quickly accept the results of studies that support his worldview, while going into each and every possible limitation of studies that do not support his worldview to such an extent that he implies we cannot accept the results of any study that does not confirm his pre-existing notions.
He makes a big deal over the fact not all economic growth reduces poverty to the same extent, which is an important point, but he also ignores the facts that every example of rapid economic growth has resulted in declines in absolute poverty and there is not a single example of significant reductions in absolute poverty through the redistribution policies he advocates without significant economic growth, he obviously knows these facts but tends to gloss over these very important facts as they do not support his advocacy of top-down redistribution policies designed by economists in developed countries and implemented using taxpayer’s money.

Martin Ravallion is obviously a brilliant economist, it is a shame he has not devoted his talents and time to find and advocate for the most effective policies to reduce poverty and has instead focused on justifying his choice of career path.

[Jakub J · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a student of development economics (which I love and find fascinating) I get to read quite a lot of material from the field. This book is perhaps the most overrated book I have ever read. Ravallion is a huge scientist who contributed a lot to the field of economics. Nonetheless, that does not ensure that his book is perfect.

While reading I sometimes felt like in the middle of the story of William Burroughs. Ravallion was unclear, the organisation of the chapters was fine, but the organisation of the text within the chapter was terrible. The book was tedious and monotonous.