Martin Ravallion:Lessons from a history of thought on poverty
13 August 2013 – http://www.voxeu.org
Poverty is in ascendency as a policy issue – but it has not always been that way. This column, based on the author’s “The Idea of Antipoverty Policy”, recounts how mainstream thinking until well into the 19th century saw little scope for fighting widespread chronic poverty. The revolution came with a deeper understanding of how market and governmental failures interact with inequality to both perpetuate poverty and retard development more broadly. New policies for fighting poverty emerged and now extreme absolute poverty is at an historic low. History suggests, however, that continued progress is not assured.