Ten Years of “Q-Squared”: Implications for Understanding and Explaining Poverty

Over the past decade, there have been a number of initiatives to promote a more systematic integration of “quantitative” and “qualitative,” or “Q-Squared,” approaches to poverty analysis in the Global South, and a large body of literature had emerged. The objective of the article is to present a (selective) review of this empirical work with a view to demonstrate the value it has added for understanding and explaining poverty. The evidence strongly suggests that Q-Squared approaches have aided our understanding of the characteristics of the poor and the causes of poverty.