After a brief historical review of studies in poverty, the author explores some key conceptual issues in defining poverty. He then defines and focuses on selected poverty measures and discusses the characteristics of the poor with special reference to some Asian countries, the USA and the U.K....

“A must read for anyone interested in understanding complexities of development process.” -Fakhruddin Ahmed, former Governor of the Central Bank of Bangladesh “Policy makers and general readers including specialists would find this lucid analysis very useful.” - Nurul Islam, Deputy...