Poverty is the state of one who lacks a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution refers to the one who lacks basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live in absolute poverty today. Relative poverty refers to lacking a usual or socially acceptable level of resources or income as compared with others within a society or country. For most of history poverty had been mostly accepted as inevitable as traditional modes of production were insufficient to give an entire population a comfortable standard of living. After the industrial revolution, mass production in factories made wealth increasingly more inexpensive and accessible. Of more importance is the modernization of agriculture, such as fertilizers, in order to provide enough yield to feed the population. People who practise asceticism intentionally live in poverty.

The supply of basic needs can be restricted by constraints on government services such as corruption, debt and loan conditionalities and by the brain drain of health care and educational professionals. Strategies of increasing income to make basic needs more affordable typically include welfare, economic freedom, and providing financial services. Today, poverty reduction is a major goal and issue for many international organizations such as the United Nations and the World Bank.

Etymology

The English word "poverty" came from Latin ''pauper'' = "poor", via Anglo-Norman povert. There are several definitions of poverty depending on the context of the situation in is placed in and the views of the person giving the definition.

Measuring poverty

Definitions

United Nations: Fundamentally, poverty is a denial of choices and opportunities, a violation of human dignity. It means lack of basic capacity to participate effectively in society. It means not having enough to feed and clothe a family, not having a school or clinic to go to, not having the land on which to grow one’s food or a job to earn one’s living, not having access to credit. It means insecurity, powerlessness and exclusion of individuals, households and communities. It means susceptibility to violence, and it often implies living in marginal or fragile environments, without access to clean water or sanitation.

World Bank: Poverty is pronounced deprivation in well-being, and comprises many dimensions. It includes low incomes and the inability to acquire the basic goods and services necessary for survival with dignity. Poverty also encompasses low levels of health and education, poor access to clean water and sanitation, inadequate physical security, lack of voice, and insufficient capacity and opportunity to better one’s life.

Absolute poverty

Poverty is usually measured as either absolute or relative poverty (the latter being actually an index of income inequality). Absolute poverty refers to a set standard which is consistent over time and between countries. The World Bank defines extreme poverty as living on less than US $1.25 (PPP) per day, and ''moderate poverty'' as less than $2 or $5 a day (but note that a person or family with access to subsistence resources, e.g. subsistence farmers, may have a low cash income without a correspondingly low standard of living – they are not living "on" their cash income but using it as a top up). It estimates that "in 2001, 1.1 billion people had consumption levels below $1 a day and 2.7 billion lived on less than $2 a day." A ''dollar a day'', in nations that do not use the U.S. dollar as currency, does not translate to living a day on the amount of local currency as determined by the exchange rate. Rather, it is determined by the purchasing power parity, which would look at how much local currency is needed to buy the same things that a dollar could buy in the United States. Usually, this would translate to less local currency than the exchange rate in poorer countries as the United States is a more expensive country.

The proportion of the developing world's population living in extreme economic poverty fell from 28 percent in 1990 to 21 percent in 2001. Most of this improvement has occurred in East and South Asia. In East Asia the World Bank reported that "The poverty headcount rate at the $2-a-day level is estimated to have fallen to about 27 percent [in 2007], down from 29.5 percent in 2006 and 69 percent in 1990." In Sub-Saharan Africa extreme poverty went up from 41 percent in 1981 to 46 percent in 2001, which combined with growing population increased the number of people living in extreme poverty from 231 million to 318 million.

In the early 1990s some of the transition economies of Eastern Europe and Central Asia experienced a sharp drop in income. The collapse of the Soviet Union resulted in large declines in GDP per capita, of about 30 to 35% between 1990 and the trough year of 1998 (when it was at its minimum). As a result poverty rates also increased although in subsequent years as per capita incomes recovered the poverty rate dropped from 31.4% of the population to 19.6% The World Bank issued a report predicting that between 2007 and 2027 the populations of Georgia and Ukraine will decrease by 17% and 24% respectively.

World Bank data shows that the percentage of the population living in households with consumption or income per person below the poverty line has decreased in each region of the world since 1990:

! Region	! 1990	! 2002	! 2004
East Asia and Pacific	15.40%	12.33%	9.07%
Europe and Central Asia	3.60%	1.28%	0.95%
Latin America and the Caribbean	9.62%	9.08%	8.64%
Middle East and North Africa	2.08%	1.69%	1.47%
South Asia	35.04%	33.44%	30.84%
Sub-Saharan Africa	46.07%	42.63%	41.09%

Other human development indicators have also been improving. Life expectancy has greatly increased in the developing world since World War II and is starting to close the gap to the developed world. Child mortality has decreased in every developing region of the world. The proportion of the world's population living in countries where per-capita food supplies are less than 2,200 calories (9,200 kilojoules) per day decreased from 56% in the mid-1960s to below 10% by the 1990s. Similar trends can be observed for literacy, access to clean water and electricity and basic consumer items.

There are various criticisms of these measurements. Shaohua Chen and Martin Ravallion note that although "a clear trend decline in the percentage of people who are absolutely poor is evident ... with uneven progress across regions...the developing world outside China and India has seen little or no sustained progress in reducing the number of poor".

Since the world's population is increasing, a constant number living in poverty would be associated with a diminishing proportion. Looking at the percentage living on less than $1/day, and if excluding China and India, then this percentage has decreased from 31.35% to 20.70% between 1981 and 2004.

The 2007 World Bank report "Global Economic Prospects" predicts that in 2030 the number living on less than the equivalent of $1 a day will fall by half, to about 550 million. An average resident of what we used to call the Third World will live about as well as do residents of the Czech or Slovak republics today. Much of Africa will have difficulty keeping pace with the rest of the developing world and even if conditions there improve in absolute terms, the report warns, Africa in 2030 will be home to a larger proportion of the world's poorest people than it is today....

Relative poverty

Relative poverty views poverty as socially defined and dependent on social context, hence relative poverty is a measure of income inequality. Usually, relative poverty is measured as the percentage of population with income less than some fixed proportion of median income. There are several other different income inequality metrics, for example the Gini coefficient or the Theil Index.

Relative poverty measures are used as official poverty rates in several developed countries. As such these poverty statistics measure inequality rather than material deprivation or hardship. The measurements are usually based on a person's yearly income and frequently take no account of total wealth. The main poverty line used in the OECD and the European Union is based on "economic distance", a level of income set at 60% of the median household income.

Other aspects

Economic aspects of poverty focus on material needs, typically including the necessities of daily living, such as food, clothing, shelter, or safe drinking water. Poverty in this sense may be understood as a condition in which a person or community is lacking in the basic needs for a minimum standard of well-being and life, particularly as a result of a persistent lack of income.

Analysis of social aspects of poverty links conditions of scarcity to aspects of the distribution of resources and power in a society and recognizes that poverty may be a function of the diminished "capability" of people to live the kinds of lives they value. The social aspects of poverty may include lack of access to information, education, health care, or political power.

Poverty may also be understood as an aspect of unequal social status and inequitable social relationships, experienced as social exclusion, dependency, and diminished capacity to participate, or to develop meaningful connections with other people in society. Such social exclusion can be minimized through strengthened connections with the mainstream, such as through the provision of relational care to those who are experiencing poverty. The World Bank's "Voices of the Poor," based on research with over 20,000 poor people in 23 countries, identifies a range of factors which poor people identify as part of poverty. These include:

Precarious livelihoods

Excluded locations

Physical limitations

Gender relationships

Problems in social relationships

Lack of security

Abuse by those in power

Dis-empowering institutions

Limited capabilities

Weak community organizations

David Moore, in his book ''The World Bank'', argues that some analysis of poverty reflect pejorative, sometimes racial, stereotypes of impoverished people as powerless victims and passive recipients of aid programs.

Ultra-poverty, a term apparently coined by Michael Lipton, connotes being amongst poorest of the poor in low-income countries. Lipton defined ultra-poverty as receiving less than 80 percent of minimum caloric intake whilst spending more than 80% of income on food. Alternatively a 2007 report issued by International Food Policy Research Institute defined ultra-poverty as living on less than 54 cents per day.

Characteristics

The effects of poverty may also be causes, as listed above, thus creating a "poverty cycle" operating across multiple levels, individual, local, national and global.

Health

One third of deaths – some 18 million people a year or 50,000 per day – are due to poverty-related causes: in total 270 million people, most of them women and children, have died as a result of poverty since 1990. Those living in poverty suffer disproportionately from hunger or even starvation and disease. Those living in poverty suffer lower life expectancy. According to the World Health Organization, hunger and malnutrition are the single gravest threats to the world's public health and malnutrition is by far the biggest contributor to child mortality, present in half of all cases.

Hunger

Rises in the costs of living making poor people less able to afford items. Poor person spend a greater portion of their budgets on food than richer people. As a result, poor households and those near the poverty threshold can be particularly vulnerable to increases in food prices. For example, in late 2007 increases in the price of grains led to food riots in some countries. The World Bank warned that 100 million people were at risk of sinking deeper into poverty. Threats to the supply of food may also be caused by drought and the water crisis. Intensive farming often leads to a vicious cycle of exhaustion of soil fertility and decline of agricultural yields. Approximately 40% of the world's agricultural land is seriously degraded. In Africa, if current trends of soil degradation continue, the continent might be able to feed just 25% of its population by 2025, according to United Nations University's Ghana-based Institute for Natural Resources in Africa. Every year nearly 11 million children living in poverty die before their fifth birthday. 1.02 billion people go to bed hungry every night.

According to the Global Hunger Index, South Asia has the highest child malnutrition rate of the world's regions. Nearly half of all Indian children are undernourished, one of the highest rates in the world and nearly double the rate of Sub-Saharan Africa. Every year, more than half a million women die in pregnancy or childbirth. Almost 90% of maternal deaths occur in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, compared to less than 1% in the developed world.

Women who have born children into poverty may not be able to nourish the children efficiently and provide adequate care in infancy. The children may also suffer from disease that has been passed down to the child through birth. Asthma and rickets are common problems children acquire when born into poverty.

Education

Research has found that there is a high risk of educational underachievement for children who are from low-income housing circumstances. This often is a process that begins in primary school for some less fortunate children. Instruction in the US educational system, as well as in most other countries, tends to be geared towards those students who come from more advantaged backgrounds. As a result, these children are at a higher risk than other children for retention in their grade, special placements during the school's hours and even not completing their high school education. There are indeed many explanations for why students tend to drop out of school. For children with low resources, the risk factors are similar to others such as juvenile delinquency rates, higher levels of teenage pregnancy, and the economic dependency upon their low income parent or parents. Families and society who submit low levels of investment in the education and development of less fortunate children end up with less favorable results for the children who see a life of parental employment reduction and low wages. Higher rates of early childbearing with all the connected risks to family, health and well-being are majorly important issues to address since education from preschool to high school are both identifiably meaningful in a life.

Poverty often drastically affects children's success in school. A child's "home activities, preferences, mannerisms" must align with the world and in the cases that they do not these students are at a disadvantage in the school and most importantly the classroom. Therefore, it is safe to state that children who live at or below the poverty level will have far less success educationally than children who live above the poverty line. Poor children have a great deal less healthcare and this ultimately results in many absences from the academic year. Additionally, poor children are much more likely to suffer from hunger, fatigue, irritability, headaches, ear infections, flu, and colds. These illnesses could potentially restrict a child or student's focus and concentration.

Housing

Poverty increases the risk of homelessness. Slum-dwellers, who make up a third of the world's urban population, live in a poverty no better, if not worse, than rural people, who are the traditional focus of the poverty in the developing world, according to a report by the United Nations. There are over 100 million street children worldwide.

Most of the children living in institutions around the world have a surviving parent or close relative, and they most commonly entered orphanages because of poverty. Experts and child advocates maintain that orphanages are expensive and often harm children's development by separating them from their families. It is speculated that, flush with money, orphanages are increasing and push for children to join even though demographic data show that even the poorest extended families usually take in children whose parents have died.

Violence

According to experts, many women become victims of trafficking, the most common form of which is prostitution, as a means of survival and economic desperation. Deterioration of living conditions can often compel children to abandon school in order to contribute to the family income, putting them at risk of being exploited, according to ECPAT International, an NGO designed to end the commercial sexual exploitation of children. For example, in Zimbabwe, a number of girls are turning to prostitution for food to survive because of the increasing poverty.

In one survey, 67% of children from disadvantaged inner cities said they had witnessed a serious assault, and 33% reported witnessing a homicide. 51% of fifth graders from New Orleans (median income for a household: $27,133) have been found to be victims of violence, compared to 32% in Washington, DC (mean income for a household: $40,127).

Poverty reduction

Various poverty reduction strategies are broadly categorized here based on whether they make more of the basic human needs available or increase the disposable income needed to purchase those needs. Some basic needs, such as improving access to education, may also help increase income.

Increasing the supply of basic needs

Before the industrial revolution, poverty had been mostly accepted as inevitable as economies produced little, making wealth scarce. The initial industrial revolution led to high economic growth and eliminated mass absolute poverty in what is now considered the developed world.

Food and other goods

Agricultural technologies such as nitrogen fertilizers, pesticides and new irrigation methods have dramatically reduced food shortages in modern times by boosting yields past previous constraints. Mass production of goods in places such as rapidly industrializing China has made what were once considered luxuries, such as vehicles and computers, inexpensive and thus accessible to many who were otherwise too poor to afford them.

Health care and education

Infectious diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis can perpetuate poverty by diverting health and economic resources from investment and productivity; malaria decreases GDP growth by up to 1.3% in some developing nations and AIDS decreases African growth by 0.3–1.5% annually. Nations do not necessarily need wealth to gain health. For example, Sri Lanka had a maternal mortality rate of 2% in the 1930s, higher than any nation today. It reduced it to 0.5–0.6% in the 1950s and to .06% today while spending less each year on maternal health because it learned what worked and what did not. Cheap water filters and promoting hand washing are some of the most cost effective health interventions and can cut deaths from diarrhea and pneumonia. Knowledge on the cost effectiveness of healthcare interventions can be elusive and educational measures have been made to disseminate what works, such as the Copenhagen Consensus.

Strategies to provide education cost effectively include deworming children, which costs about 50 cents per child per year and reduces non-attendance from anemia, illness and malnutrition, while being only a twenty-fifth as expensive as increasing school attendance by constructing schools. A study by Oxford University shows that schoolgirl absenteeism could be cut in half by providing free sanitary towels. Also, when women are given more capabilities and opportunities, they seem more altruistic in helping the family and more likely to prioritize education.

Desirable actions such as enrolling children in school or receiving vaccinations can be encouraged by a form of aid known as Conditional Cash Transfers. In Mexico, for example, dropout rates of 16-19 year olds in rural area dropped by 20% and children gained half an inch in height. Initial fears that the program would encourage families to stay at home rather than work to collect benefits have proven to be unfounded. Instead, there is less excuse for neglectful behavior as, for example, children stopped begging on the streets instead of going to school because it could result in suspension from the program.

Removing constraints on government services

Government revenue can be diverted away from basic services by corruption, such as in Nigeria, where its leaders stole an estimated $400 billion of the country's oil revenue. Funds from aid and natural resources are often diverted into private hands and then sent to banks overseas as a result of graft. Preventive measures, according to UNODC, include requiring public officials to disclose earnings and assets and stricter rules on funding to political parties and electoral campaigns. If Western banks rejected stolen money, says a report by Global Witness, ordinary people would benefit “in a way that aid flows will never achieve”. The report asked for more action from banks as they have proved capable of stanching the flow of funds linked to terrorism and money-laundering. A report by the African Union found that more than $150 billion a year is taken from Africa through tax evasion by foreign corporations such that the poverty stricken continent is a net creditor to the rest of the world. It estimated that about 30% of sub-Saharan Africa's GDP has been moved to tax havens.

Developing countries' debt to banks and governments from richer countries are often more than a country can generate per year on profits from exports. If poor countries do not have to spend so much on debt payments, they can use the money instead for basic services such as health-care and education. For example, Zambia spent 40% of its total budget to repay foreign debt, and only 7% for basic state services in 1997. One of the proposed ways to help poor countries has been debt relief. Zambia began offering services, such as free health care even while overwhelming the health care infrastructure, because of savings that resulted from a 2005 round of debt relief.

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, as primary holders of developing countries' debt, attach structural adjustment conditionalities to loans which generally include the elimination of state subsidies and the privatization of state services. For example, the World Bank presses poor nations to eliminate subsidies for fertilizer even while many farmers cannot afford them at market prices. In the case of Malawi, almost five million of its 13 million people used to need emergency food aid. However, after the government changed policy and subsidies for fertilizer and seed were introduced, farmers produced record-breaking corn harvests in 2006 and 2007 as production leaped to 3.4 million in 2007 from 1.2 million in 2005, making Malawi a major food exporter. In the former Soviet states, the reconfiguration of public financing in their transition to a market economy called for reduced spending on health and education, sharply increasing poverty.

A major proportion of aid from donor nations is tied, mandating that a receiving nation spend on products and expertise originating only from the donor country. For example, Eritrea is forced to spend aid money on foreign goods and services to build a network of railways even though it is cheaper to use local expertise and resources. US law requires food aid be spent on buying food at home, instead of where the hungry live, and, as a result, half of what is spent is used on transport.

Reversing brain drains

The loss of basic needs providers emigrating from impoverished countries has a damaging effect. For example, an estimated 100,000 Philippine nurses emigrated between 1994 and 2006. As of 2004, there were more Ethiopia-trained doctors living in Chicago than in Ethiopia. Proposals to mitigate the problem by the World Health Organization include compulsory government service for graduates of public medical and nursing schools and creating career-advancing programs to retain personnel.

Controlling overpopulation

Some argue that overpopulation and lack of access to birth control leads to population increase to exceed food production and other resources. The world's population is expected to reach nearly 9 billion in 2040. However, the reverse is also true, that poverty causes overpopulation as it gives women little power to control giving birth, or to have educational attainment or a career. Empowering women with better education and more control of their lives makes them more successful in bringing down rapid population growth because they have more say in family planning.

Increasing personal income

Raising farm incomes is described as the core of the antipoverty effort as three quarters of the poor today are farmers. Estimates show that growth in the agricultural productivity of small farmers is, on average, at least twice as effective in benefiting the poorest half of a country’s population as growth generated in nonagricultural sectors.

Income grants

A guaranteed minimum income ensures that every citizen will live be able to purchase a desired level of basic needs. A more specific policy, called a basic income (or negative income tax) is a system of social security, that periodically provides each citizen, rich or poor, with a sum of money that is sufficient to live on. In parts of Namibia, where such a program pays only $13 a month, people were able to pay tuition fees, raising the proportion of children going to school by 92%, while child malnutrition rates fell from 42% to 10% and economic activity grew by 10%. Proponents argue that a basic income is more economically efficient than a minimum wage and unemployment benefits, as the minimum wage effectively imposes a high marginal tax on employers, causing losses in efficiency.

In 1968, James Tobin, Paul Samuelson, John Kenneth Galbraith and another 1,200 economists signed a document calling for the US Congress to introduce a system of income guarantees. Winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics, with often diverse political convictions, who support a basic income include Herbert Simon, Friedrich Hayek, Robert Solow, Milton Friedman, Jan Tinbergen, James Tobin and James Meade.

The famine relief model increasing used by aid groups calls for giving cash or cash vouchers to the hungry to pay local farmers instead of buying food from donor countries, often required by law, as it wastes money on transport costs.

Economic freedoms

In Canada, it takes two days, two registration procedures, and $280 to open a business while an entrepreneur in Bolivia must pay $2,696 in fees, wait 82 business days, and go through 20 procedures to do the same. Such costly barriers favor big firms at the expense of small enterprises, where most jobs are created. Often, businesses have to bribe government officials even for routine activities, which is, in effect, a tax on business. Noted reductions in poverty in recent decades has occurred in China and India mostly as a result of the abandonment of collective farming in China and the ending of the central planning model known as the License Raj in India, where GDP grew slower in the 1970s than the preceding 100 years.

The unwillingness of governments and feudal elites to give full-fledged property rights in land to their tenants is cited as one of the chief obstacles to development. The business environment can be further worsened by the failure of governments to provide essential infrastructure.

Financial services

Another form of aid is microloans, made famous by the Grameen Bank, where small amounts of money are loaned to farmers or villages, mostly women, who can then obtain physical capital to increase their economic rewards. For example, the Thai government's People's Bank, makes loans of $100 to $300 to help farmers buy equipment or seeds, help street vendors acquire an inventory to sell, or help others set up small shops. However, microlending has been criticized for making hyperprofits off the poor even from its founder, Muhammad Yunus and in India which has seen a growing wave of defaults and suicides.

Those in poverty place overwhelming importance on having a safe place to save money, much more so than receiving loans. Also, a large part of microfinance loans are spent on products that would usually be paid by a checking or savings account. Lack of financial services, as a result of restrictive regulations, such as the requirements for banking licenses, makes it hard for even smaller microsavings programs to reach the poor. Mobile banking addresses the problem of the heavy regulation and costly maintenance of saving accounts. Mobile financial services in the developing world, ahead of the developed world in this respect, could be worth $5 billion by 2012. Safaricom’s M-Pesa launched one of the first systems where a network of agents of mostly shopkeepers, instead of bank branches, would take deposits in cash and translate these onto a virtual account on customers' phones. Cash transfers can be done between phones and issued back in cash with a small commission, making remittances safer.

Remittances

The World Bank says foreign workers sent $328 billion from richer to poorer countries last year, more than double the $120 billion in official aid flows from OECD members. India got $52 billion from its diaspora, more than it took in foreign direct investment.

Cultural factors to productivity

Cultural factors, such as discrimination of various kinds, can negatively affect productivity such as age discrimination, stereotyping, gender discrimination, racial discrimination, and caste discrimination.

Max Weber and the modernization theory suggest that cultural values could affect economic success. However, researchers have gathered evidence that suggest that values are not as deeply ingrained and that changing economic opportunities explain most of the movement into and out of poverty, as opposed to shifts in values.

Voluntary poverty

Among some individuals, poverty is considered a necessary or desirable condition, which must be embraced to reach certain spiritual, moral, or intellectual states. Poverty is often understood to be an essential element of renunciation in religions such as Buddhism (only for monks, not for lay persons) and Jainism, whilst in Roman Catholicism it is one of the evangelical counsels.

Benedict XVI distinguishes “poverty ''chosen''” (the poverty of spirit proposed by Jesus), and “poverty ''to be fought''” (unjust and imposed poverty). He considers that the moderation implied in the former favors solidarity, and is a necessary condition so as to fight effectively to eradicate the abuse of the latter.

See also

Accumulation by dispossession

Multidimensional Poverty Index

Bottom of the pyramid

2007–2008 world food price crisis

Climate change and poverty

Cycle of poverty

Development state

Diseases of poverty

Distribution of wealth

Economic development

Economic inequality

Economic Vulnerability Index

Feminization of poverty

Financial exclusion

Food security

Food vs fuel

Fuel poverty

Full employment

Great Depression

Green Revolution

Growth elasticity of poverty

Hunger

Immiserizing growth

Income disparity

Income deficit

International inequality

International Development

Life expectancy

Literacy

Migrant worker

Minimum wage

Neo-imperialism

Neoliberalism

Poor Law

Poverty reduction

Poverty threshold

Poverty trap

Precaria (country)

Rural ghetto

Shanty town

Social exclusion

Subsidized housing

Street children

Structural adjustment

Theories of poverty

Underclass

Welfare

Working poor

Nations

Poverty by country

Least Developed Countries

Countries by fertility rate

Countries by GDP (PPP)

Countries by poverty rate

Theology

Relational care

Sadaqah

Zakat

Organizations and campaigns

Abahlali baseMjondolo – South African Shack dwellers' organisation

Appropedia

Azafady

Brooks World Poverty Institute

Catholic Charities USA

Center for Global Development

Child Poverty Action Group

Compassion Canada

Compassion International

Department for International Development

End Poverty Now

Eurodad

Food First

Five Talents – Gives poverty stricken people another chance

Free the Children

Grameen Bank A micro lending bank for the poor.

Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP)

Habitat for Humanity International

Harlem Children's Zone

Homeless International

17 October: UN International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (White Band Day 4)

IFAD Vietnam

International Food Policy Research Institute

International Fund for Agricultural Development

International Water Management Institute

Islamic Development Bank

Islamic Relief

Southern Poverty Law Center

Tear Fund

The Make Poverty History campaign

Mercy Ships

Microgiving Direct charitable giving

Mississippi Teacher Corps

ONE campaign

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

United Nations Millennium Campaign

United Prosperity (organisation)

U.S. Agency for International Development

World Bank

World Congress of Muslim Philanthropists

World Food Day

World Food Program

World Vision

In documentary photography and film

;Authors with significant work:

Diane Arbus

Richard Avedon

Jim Goldberg

Dorothea Lange

Manuel Rivera-Ortiz

Sebastião Salgado

Tom Stone

;Significant titles:

''Born into Brothels'' (2004)

''Harlan County, USA'' (1976)

''Streetwise'' (1984)

References

Further reading

Adato, Michelle & Meinzen-Dick, Ruth, eds. Johns Hopkins University Press, [http://www.ifpri.org/publication/agricultural-research-livelihoods-and-poverty International Food Policy Research Institute">Agricultural Research, Livelihoods, and Poverty: Studies of Economic and Social Impacts in Six Countries (2007), Johns Hopkins University Press, [http://www.ifpri.org/publication/agricultural-research-livelihoods-and-poverty International Food Policy Research Institute

Anzia, Lys "Educate a Woman, You Educate a Nation" – South Africa Aims to Improve its Education for Girls WNN – Women News Network. Aug. 28, 2007.

Atkinson, Anthony. ''Poverty in Europe'' 1998

Banerjee, Abhijit & Esther Duflo, Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty (New York: PublicAffairs, 2011)

Bergmann, Barbara. "Deciding Who's Poor", Dollars & Sense, March/April 2000

Betson, David M. & Warlick, Jennifer L. "Alternative Historical Trends in Poverty." ''American Economic Review'' 88:348–51. 1998. in JSTOR

Brady, David "Rethinking the Sociological Measurement of Poverty" ''Social Forces'' 81#3 2003, pp. 715–751 Online in Project Muse. Abstract: Reviews shortcomings of the official U.S. measure; examines several theoretical and methodological advances in poverty measurement. Argues that ideal measures of poverty should: (1) measure comparative historical variation effectively; (2) be relative rather than absolute; (3) conceptualize poverty as social exclusion; (4) assess the impact of taxes, transfers, and state benefits; and (5) integrate the depth of poverty and the inequality among the poor. Next, this article evaluates sociological studies published since 1990 for their consideration of these criteria. This article advocates for three alternative poverty indices: the interval measure, the ordinal measure, and the sum of ordinals measure. Finally, using the Luxembourg Income Study, it examines the empirical patterns with these three measures, across advanced capitalist democracies from 1967 to 1997. Estimates of these poverty indices are made available.

Buhmann, Brigitte, et al. 1988. "Equivalence Scales, Well-Being, Inequality, and Poverty: Sensitivity Estimates Across Ten Countries Using the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) Database." Review of Income and Wealth 34:115–42.

Cox, W. Michael & Alm, Richard. ''Myths of Rich and Poor'' 1999

Danziger, Sheldon H. & Weinberg, Daniel H. "The Historical Record: Trends in Family Income, Inequality, and Poverty." Pp. 18–50 in ''Confronting Poverty: Prescriptions for Change,'' edited by Sheldon H. Danziger, Gary D. Sandefur, and Daniel. H. Weinberg. Russell Sage Foundation. 1994.

Firebaugh, Glenn. "Empirics of World Income Inequality." ''American Journal of Sociology'' (2000) 104:1597–1630. in JSTOR

Frank, Ellen, ''Dr. Dollar: How Is Poverty Defined in Government Statistics?'' Dollars & Sense, January/February 2006

Gans, Herbert J., "The Uses of Poverty: The Poor Pay All", Social Policy, July/August 1971: pp. 20–24

George, Abraham, Wharton Business School Publications – Why the Fight Against Poverty is Failing: a contrarian view

Gordon, David M. ''Theories of Poverty and Underemployment: Orthodox, Radical, and Dual Labor Market Perspectives.'' 1972.

Haveman, Robert H. ''Poverty Policy and Poverty Research.'' Madison: University of Wisconsin Press 1987 ISBN 0-299-11150-4

Iceland, John ''Poverty in America: a handbook'' University of California Press, 2003

McEwan, Joanne, and Pamela Sharpe, eds. ''Accommodating Poverty: The Housing and Living Arrangements of the English Poor, c. 1600–1850'' (Palgrave Macmillan; 2010) 292 pages; scholarly studies of rural and urban poor, as well as vagrants, unmarried mothers, and almshouse dwellers.

O'Connor, Alice "Poverty Research and Policy for the Post-Welfare Era" ''Annual Review of Sociology'', 2000

Osberg, Lars & Xu, Kuan. "International Comparisons of Poverty Intensity: index decomposition and bootstrap inference." ''The Journal of Human Resources'' 2000. 35:51–81.

Paugam, Serge. "Poverty and Social Exclusion: a sociological view." Pp. 41–62 in ''The Future of European Welfare'', edited by Martin Rhodes and Yves Meny, 1998.

Philippou, Lambros (2010) "Public Space, Enlarged Mentality and Being-In-Poverty", ''Philosophical Inquiry'', Vol. 32, No. 1–2 pp. 103–115.

Pressman, Steven, ''Poverty in America: an annotated bibliography.'' Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1994 ISBN 0-8108-2833-2

Rothman, David J., (editor). ''The Almshouse Experience'' (Poverty U.S.A.: the Historical Record). New York: Arno Press, 1971. ISBN 0-405-03092-4Reprint of Report of the committee appointed by the Board of Guardians of the Poor of the City and Districts of Philadelphia to visit the cities of Baltimore, New York, Providence, Boston, and Salem (published in Philadelphia, 1827); Report of the Massachusetts General Court's Committee on Pauper Laws (published in [Boston?], 1821); and the 1824 Report of the New York Secretary of State on the relief and settlement of the poor (from the 24th annual report of the New York State Board of Charities, 1901).

Sen, Amartya ''Poverty and Famines: an essay on entitlement and deprivation''. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981

Sen, Amartya. ''Development as Freedom''. New York: Knopf, 1999

Smeeding, Timothy M., O'Higgins, Michael & Rainwater, Lee. ''Poverty, Inequality and Income Distribution in Comparative Perspective.'' Urban Institute Press 1990.

Smith, Stephen C., ''Ending Global Poverty: a guide to what works'', New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005

Triest, Robert K. "Has Poverty Gotten Worse?" ''Journal of Economic Perspectives'' 1998. 12:97–114.

Wilson, Richard & Pickett, Kate. ''The Spirit Level'', London: Allen Lane, 2009

World Bank: "Can South Asia End Poverty in a Generation?"

World Bank, "World Development Report 2004: Making Services Work For Poor People", 2004.

External links

Disease control priorities project Studies the cost effectiveness of health care interventions

Islamic Development Bank

Luxembourg Income Study Contains a wealth of data on income inequality and poverty, and hundreds of its sponsored research papers using this data.

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Contains reports on economic development as well as relations between rich and poor nations.

OPHI Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative (OPHI)] Research to advance the human development approach to poverty reduction.

Transparency International Tracks issues of government and corporate corruption around the world.

United Nations Hundres of free reports related to economic development and standards of living in countries around the world, such as the annual ''Human Development Report.''

European Commissioner: There is a tendency to evict the poor

U.S. Agency for International Development USAID is the primary U.S. government agency with the mission for aid to developing countries.

World Bank Contains hundreds of reports which can be downloaded for free, such as the annual ''World Development Report.''

World Food Program Associated with the United Nations, the World Food Program compiles hundreds of reports on hunger and food security around the world.

Category:Aid Category:Development Category:Development economics Category:Economic development Category:Economics Category:Humanitarian aid

af:Armoede ar:فقر gn:Sogue bg:Бедност bo:དབུལ་ཕོངས། br:Paourentez ca:Pobresa cs:Chudoba cy:Tlodi da:Fattigdom pdc:Aarmut de:Armut el:Φτώχεια es:Pobreza eo:Malriĉeco eu:Pobrezia fa:فقر fr:Pauvreté fur:Puaretât gl:Pobreza ko:빈곤 hr:Siromaštvo id:Kemiskinan is:Fátækt it:Povertà he:עוני jv:Kamlaratan kk:Абсолютті кедейшілік sw:Umaskini ku:Xizanî lo:ຄວາມທຸກຍາກ la:Paupertas lv:Nabadzība lb:Aarmut lt:Skurdas jbo:kampindi hu:Szegénység mk:Сиромаштија ml:ദാരിദ്ര്യം ms:Kemiskinan mn:Ядуурал nl:Armoede ja:貧困 no:Fattigdom nn:Fattigdom nrm:Pouortaé oc:Pauretat pl:Bieda pt:Pobreza ro:Sărăcie qu:Wakcha ru:Бедность sq:Varfëria scn:Puvireddu simple:Poverty so:Sabool sr:Сиромаштво sh:Siromaštvo fi:Köyhyys sv:Fattigdom tl:Karukhaan ta:வறுமை tt:Ярлылык te:పేదరికం th:ความยากจน tr:Yoksulluk uk:Бідність ur:غربت vi:Nghèo yo:Àìní zh-yue:窮 zh:貧窮

Name	Neale Donald Walsch
Birth date	September 10, 1943
Birth place	Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States
Nationality	American
Known for	Conversations with God
Occupation	Author
Footnotes	}}

Neale Donald Walsch (born September 10, 1943) is an American author of the series ''Conversations with God''. The nine books in the complete series are ''Conversations With God'' (books 1-3), ''Friendship with God'', ''Communion with God'', ''Conversations With God for Teens'', ''The New Revelations'', ''Tomorrow's God'', and ''Home with God: In a Life That Never Ends''.

Biography

Walsch was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on September 10, 1943, and brought up as a Roman Catholic by a family who encouraged his quest for spiritual truth. He informally studied comparative theology for many years. He says his books are not channelled, but rather that they are inspired by God and that they can help a person relate to him from a modern perspective. The God in his books, for example, says that "there is nothing you have to do." Walsch believes in a panentheistic God, who tries to communicate himself as being "unselfish". Walsch's vision is an expansion and unification of all present theologies to render them more relevant to our present day and time. He created Humanity's Team as a spiritual movement whose purpose is to communicate and implement his New Spirituality beliefs, particularly that we are all one with God and one with life, in a shared global state of being. This state can be achieved, Walsch argues, by the act of helping other people: "The fastest way to apply anything in your life is to help others to apply it... The fastest way to use any wisdom that resides in your soul is to help someone else... Because we are all one.". Walsch has nine children.

Career

Before writing the ''Conversations With God'' series, Walsch worked variously as a radio station program director, newspaper managing editor, and in marketing and public relations. In the early 1990s he suffered a series of crushing blows — a fire that destroyed all of his belongings, the break-up of his marriage, and a car accident that left him with a broken neck. Once recovered, but alone and unemployed, he was forced to live in a tent in Jackson Hot Springs, just outside Ashland, Oregon, collecting and recycling aluminium cans in order to eat. At the time, he thought his life had come to an end. Despondent, he began his writings after working his way out of homelessness and following a stint as a radio talk show host.

His first book, ''Conversations with God,'' was published in 1995 and became an international bestseller. It remained on the ''New York Times'' Bestseller List for 135 weeks. Six of his other books have made the ''Times'' list in the years since. He has published 28 books and his works have been translated into 37 languages.

In 2003, the film ''Indigo'', written by Walsch and James Twyman and directed by Stephen Simon was released. It chronicled the fictional story of the redemption of a grandfather, played by Walsch, through his granddaughter, who is an indigo child.

''Conversations With God: The Movie'' opened in U.S. theaters in 2006 on October 27 and in Canada on November 10. The film was released on DVD in February 2007.

Criticism

Walsch was accused of plagiarism for a six-paragraph entry in one of the daily postings on his blog during 2008, this one during the Christmas season, when he published an item titled "Upside down, or right side up?" on Beliefnet.com. Walsch's entry purported to tell the tale of a miraculous appearance of the words "Christ Was Love" during the rehearsal of his son's school Christmas pageant; but his article was almost identical to an article published 10 years previously by Candy Chand in the spiritual magazine ''Clarity'' and spread over the internet in places such as the Heartwarmers website, down to the name of the son mentioned in both articles, Nicholas - as both authors have a son named Nicholas. Walsch publicly apologized, saying that he must have erroneously internalized the story as his own over the years, a claim the original author said she does not believe. The article was subsequently pulled from Beliefnet.com and Walsch voluntarily withdrew from the roster of authors because of his error. Walsch explained that he found the anecdote in old computer files from years earlier, saw his son's name in the copy, and was fully convinced that the history had really happened to him and that he had just forgotten it, but "remembered" when he saw the anecdote in his file. He cited it as a classic case of false memory and said that he had been repeating the anecdote as his own in many speeches over the years, adding that he was "chagrined and astonished that my mind could play such a trick on me".

Writings

''Conversations with God: An Uncommon Dialogue (Book 1)'' (October 1, 1996) ISBN 978-0399142789

''Conversations with God: An Uncommon Dialogue (Book 2)'' (May 1, 1997) ISBN 978-1571740564

''Meditations from Conversations With God, Book 2: A Personal Journal'' (December 1, 1997) ISBN 978-1571740724

''The Little Soul and the Sun: A Children's Parable Adapted from Conversations With God'' (April 1, 1998) ISBN 978-1571740878

''Conversations with God: An Uncommon Dialogue (Book 3)'' (October 1, 1998) ISBN 978-1571741035

''Neale Donald Walsch on Relationships'' (September 29, 1999) ISBN 978-1571741639

''Neale Donald Walsch on Holistic Living'' (September 30, 1999) ISBN 978-1571741653

''Neale Donald Walsch on Abundance and Right Livelihood'' (October 1, 1999) ISBN 978-1571741646

''Friendship with God: An Uncommon Dialogue'' (October 1, 1999) ISBN 978-0399145414

''Meditations from Conversations With God: Book 1'' (September 2, 1999) ISBN 978-0340765951

''Questions and Answers on Conversations With God'' (October 1, 1999) ISBN 978-1571741400

''The Wedding Vows from Conversations With God'' (April 1, 2000) ISBN 978-1571741615

''Bringers of the Light'' (May 31, 2000) ISBN 978-0967875507

''Recreating Your Self'' (June 1, 2000) ISBN 978-0967875514

''Communion With God: An Uncommon Dialog'' (October, 2000) ISBN 978-0399146701

''Signals: An Inspiring Story of Life After Life'' (April 9, 2001) (by Joel Rothschild, foreword by Neale Donald Walsh)

''Moments of Grace'' (July 2001) ISBN 978-1571743039

''Conversations With God for Teens'' (September 30, 2001) ISBN 978-1571742636

''The New Revelations: A Conversation with God'' (September 29, 2002) ISBN 978-0743463034

''Tomorrow's God: Our Greatest Spiritual Challenge'' (March 2, 2004) ISBN 978-0743463041

''What God Wants: A Compelling Answer to Humanity's Biggest Question'' (March 21, 2005) ISBN 978-0743267144

''The Little Soul And The Earth: A Children's Parable Adapted From Conversations With God'' (August 1, 2005) (with Frank Riccio) ISBN 978-1571744517

''The Complete Conversations with God'' (October 20, 2005) ISBN 978-0399153297

''Meditations from Conversations With God'' (December 31, 2005) ISBN 978-1571745132

''Home with God: In a Life That Never Ends'' (March 29, 2006) ISBN 978-0743267168

''Happier Than God: Turn Ordinary Life into an Extraordinary Experience'' (February 28, 2008) ISBN 978-1571745767

''When Everything Changes, Change Everything: In a Time of Turmoil, a Pathway to Peace'' (May 7, 2009) ISBN 978-1571746061

''The Conversations with God Companion: The Essential Tool for Individual and Group Study'' (May 21, 2009) ISBN 978-1571746047

''The Storm Before the Calm'' (2011 September 27) ISBN 978-1401936921

See also

Mediumship

New Age

Spirituality

New Thought

References

External links

Nealedonaldwalsch.com

Interviews

Neale Donald Walsch Interview with Arielle Ford

'Being at One': Neale Donald Walsch Interview with Gil Dekel

The Ed Bernstein Show-Interview Neale Donald Walsch

Neale Donald Walsch on Synchronicity

Neale Donald Walsch Interview with Dr. Michael Laitman

Category:American spiritual writers Category:New Age writers Category:People from Milwaukee, Wisconsin Category:1943 births Category:Living people Category:People from Ashland, Oregon Category:Panentheists Category:Channellers

ar:نيل دونالد وولش cs:Neale Donald Walsch de:Neale Donald Walsch et:Neale Donald Walsch es:Neale Donald Walsch fa:نیل دونالد والش fr:Neale Donald Walsch hr:Neale Donald Walsch he:ניל דונאלד ולש mr:नील डोनाल्ड वॉल्श nl:Neale Donald Walsch ja:ニール・ドナルド・ウォルシュ no:Neale Donald Walsch pl:Neale Donald Walsch pt:Neale Donald Walsch ru:Уолш, Нил Доналд fi:Neale Donald Walsch sv:Neale Donald Walsch uk:Ніл Дональд Волш

Poverty pimp or "professional poverty pimp" is a pejorative label used to convey that an individual or group is benefiting unduly by acting as an intermediary on behalf of the poor, the disadvantaged, or some other "victimized" groups.

Those who use this appellation suggest that those so labeled profit unduly from the misfortune of others, and therefore do not really wish the societal problems that they appear to work on to be eliminated permanently, as it is not in their own interest for this to happen.

The most frequent targets of this accusation are those receiving government funding or that solicit private charity to work on issues on behalf of various disadvantaged individuals or groups, but who never seem to be able to show any amelioration of the problems experienced by their target population. Some even suggest that that if profit were eliminated as a factor, greater steps in the alleviation of the oppressive situations could begin to truly occur.

Usage example

"Scoggins’s experiences with government intervention confirmed his political heritage. At age ten, he had helped his family campaign for Eisenhower in the 1956 election, carrying the basket from which they sold chicken sandwiches up and down Tulsa’s historic black business district. “You had every last thing you wanted there. Welfare was not even thought of,” Scoggins says. Businessmen represented the black community, not a “bunch of ministers or poverty pimps, like today,” Scoggins recalls."

"During one particularly heated moment, Rep. Joe Baca called Wal-Mart executives 'poverty pimps,' arguing that they exploited the Hispanic community, then tried to make up for it by contributing to Latino organizations, according to a House Democratic aide with ties to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus."

References

Category:Pejorative terms for people Category:Political terms Category:Poverty Category:Welfare state

name	Hans Rosling
birth date	July 27, 1948
death date
workplaces	Karolinska Institute
alma mater	Uppsala University, St. John's Medical College
known for	Gapminder Foundation and Trendalyzer
signature
spouse	}}

Hans Rosling (born 27 July 1948 in Uppsala, Sweden) is a Swedish medical doctor, academic, statistician and public speaker. He is Professor of International Health at Karolinska Institute and co-founder and chairman of the Gapminder Foundation, which developed the Trendalyzer software system.

Study and career

From 1967 to 1974 Rosling studied statistics and medicine at Uppsala University, and in 1972 he studied public health at St. John's Medical College, Bangalore. He became a licenced physician in 1976 and from 1979 to 1981 he served as District Medical Officer in Nacala in northern Mozambique.

On 21 August 1981, Rosling discovered an outbreak of konzo, a paralytic disease, and the investigations that followed earned him a Ph.D. degree at Uppsala University in 1986. He spent two decades studying outbreaks of this disease in remote rural areas across Africa and supervised more than ten Ph.D. students. Outbreaks occur among hunger-stricken rural populations in Africa where a diet dominated by insufficiently processed cassava results in simultaneous malnutrition and high dietary cyanide intake.

Rosling's research has also focused on other links between economic development, agriculture, poverty and health in Africa, Asia and Latin America. He has been health adviser to WHO, UNICEF and several aid agencies. In 1993 he was one of the initiators of Médecins Sans Frontières in Sweden. At Karolinska Institutet he was head of the Division of International Health (IHCAR) from 2001 to 2007. As chairman of Karolinska International Research and Training Committee (1998–2004) he started health research collaborations with universities in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. He started new courses on Global Health and co-authored a textbook on Global Health that promotes a fact-based world view.

Rosling presented the television documentary ''The Joy of Stats'', which was broadcast in the United Kingdom by BBC Four in December 2010.

Gapminder

Rosling co-founded the Gapminder Foundation together with his son Ola Rosling and daughter-in-law Anna Rosling Rönnlund. Gapminder developed the Trendalyzer software that converts international statistics into moving, interactive graphics. His lectures using Gapminder graphics to visualise world development have won awards. The interactive animations are freely available from the Foundation's website. On 16 March 2007 Google acquired the Trendalyzer software with the intention to scale it up and make it freely available for public statistics. In 2008 Google made available a Motion Chart Google Gadget and in 2009 the Public Data Explorer.

Rosling is also a sword swallower, as demonstrated in the final moments of his second talk at the TED conference. In 2009 he was listed as one of 100 leading global thinkers by Foreign Policy Magazine, and in 2011 as one of 100 most creative people in business by the Fast Company Magazine. In 2011 he was elected member of the Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences.

Awards

2007 – Statistician of the Year Award from the Swedish Association for Statistics

2007 – Jubilee Prize from the Swedish Medical Society

2007 – Knowledge Prize from the National Encyclopaedia of Sweden

2008 – Speaker of the Year from the Swedish Event Academy

2008 – The Big Debate Award from Dagens Medicine

2009 – Georg and Greta Borgstrom Award from the Swedish Royal Academy of Agriculture and Forestry

2010 – Illis Quorum, Highest Award conferred by the Government of Sweden

2010 – The Grand Prize from the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

2010 – Gold Medal from Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences

2010 – World Technology Award in Design together with Ola Rosling & Anna Rosling Rönnlund

2010 – The Gannon Award for the Continued Pursuit of Human Advancement (US)

2011 - Grierson 2011 Award for the Best British Science Documentary, presenter in "The Joy of Stats"

2012 - Time 100 most influential people list

Selected publications

References

External links

Hans Rosling shows the best stats you've ever seen at the 2006 TED Conference in Monterey, CA highlighting novel ways of presenting global statistics.

Hans Rosling's new insights on poverty, from TED2007, featuring a surprise ending. (video)

Video of Hans Rosling speech at the OECD World Forum in Istanbul

Hans Rosling's blog

Ola Rosling giving a Gapminder presentation at Google (video)

Motion Chart Google Gadget

Hans Rosling: Global health expert; data visionary profile on TED.com

Category:1948 births Category:People from Uppsala Category:Karolinska Institutet faculty Category:Swedish bloggers Category:Public health education Category:Living people Category:Sword swallowers

ar:هانس روسلينج de:Hans Rosling es:Hans Rosling fr:Hans Rosling he:האנס רוסלינג nl:Hans Rosling ja:ハンス・ロスリング no:Hans Rosling pl:Hans Rosling sv:Hans Rosling zh:汉斯·罗斯林

name	Esther Duflo
birth date	October 25, 1972
nationality	French
institution	MIT
field	Social economicsDevelopment economics
alma mater	MITÉcole normale supérieureParis School of Economics
influences	Abhijit BanerjeeMichael Kremer
awards	John Bates Clark Medal (2010)Calvó-Armengol International Prize (2010)
signature
repec prefix	e
repec id	pdu166 }}

Esther Duflo (born October 25, 1972) is a French economist, Co-Founder and Director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, and Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Duflo is an NBER Research Associate, serves on the board of the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD), and is Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research's development economics program.

Her research focuses on microeconomic issues in developing countries, including household behavior, education, access to finance, health, and policy evaluation. Together with Abhijit Banerjee, Dean Karlan, Michael Kremer, John A. List, and Sendhil Mullainathan, she has been a driving force in advancing field experiments as an important methodology to discover causal relationships in economics.

Education

After studying in Lycée Henri IV's "classes préparatoires BL" Duflo completed her undergraduate studies at L'Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris in 1994, received a master's degree from DELTA in Paris (Now, Paris School of Economics) jointly with L'Ecole Normale Supérieure in 1995, and completed a PhD in Economics at MIT in 1999. Upon completing her MIT PhD she was appointed assistant professor of economics at MIT, and has been at MIT ever since, aside from being on leave to Princeton University in 2001-2002. She was promoted to associate professor (with tenure) in 2002, at the age of 29, making her among the youngest faculty at the Institute to be awarded tenure.

Awards

She is a recipient of the 2010 John Bates Clark Medal for economists under the age of forty who are judged to have made the most significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge. She received her (first) honorary doctorate from the Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium Feb 2, 2010.

In 2009 she was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow, otherwise known as a "genius" grant. She is also a fellow of American Academy of Arts and Sciences from 2009. On May 21, 2009 she was selected as the first recipient of the Calvó-Armengol International Prize, which she finally received on June 4, 2010. This is awarded every two years to a top young researcher in economics or the social sciences for contributions to the theory and comprehension of the mechanisms of social interaction.

The US magazine ''Foreign Policy'' named her as one of the top 100 public intellectuals in the world in May 2008. In 2010, Foreign Policy again named her to its list of top 100 global thinkers. ''The Economist'' lists Duflo as one of the top 8 young economists in the world. She was named one of ''Time Magazine'''s 100 most influential people in the world in April 2011.

In 2005, Le Monde, Cercle des économistes awarded her the Best Young French Economist prize. She was awarded the Elaine Bennett Research Prize by the American Economic Association in 2002. This prize honors a woman economist under the age of forty who has made outstanding contributions in any field of economic research.

Other Professional Activities

Esther Duflo serves as founding editor of the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, and co-editor of the Review of Economics and Statistics and the Journal of Development Economics, and is a member of the editorial committee of the ''Annual Review of Economics''. Duflo is also a member of the Human Capital Research Programme within the International Growth Centre.

She is currently a co-director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab at MIT, and writes a monthly column for Libération, a French daily.

Duflo was the main speaker at the first ''Bocconi Lecture'' of Bocconi University in 2010, followed in 2011 by Caroline Hoxby.

Publications

In April 2011 she released her latest book Poor Economics, co-authored with Abhijit V. Banerjee. It documents their 15 years of experience in conducting randomized control trials to alleviate poverty. The book has received a very positive acclaim. Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen commented on book "A marvelously insightful book by the two outstanding researchers on the real nature of poverty."

References

External links and references

Esther Duflo's Home Page at MIT

Poverty Action Lab

2008 Interview of Esther Duflo at Philanthropy Action

2011 Interview of Esther Duflo at Philanthropy Action

The Experimental Approach to Development Economics, Abhijit V. Banerjee, Esther Duflo. ''Annual Review of Economics'', Vol. 1: 151-78

Social experiments to fight poverty at TED 2010

Website for her book ''Poor Economics''

Category:1972 births Category:Living people Category:French economists Category:Alumni of the École Normale Supérieure Category:Development economists Category:Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni Category:Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty Category:MacArthur Fellows Category:Lycée Henri-IV alumni

bn:এস্থার দুফ্লো bg:Естер Дюфло de:Esther Duflo fr:Esther Duflo he:אסתר דופלו ja:エスター・デュフロ ru:Дуфло, Эстер sv:Esther Duflo